LocalGov Drupal vs Single Digital Presence

LocalGov Drupal is an open-source publishing platform built and maintained by councils and suppliers for local government. It is designed for local councils in the UK and Ireland, with tools for subsites, news, events, alerts, directories, service pages, guides, step-by-step pages, HTML publications and elections. Publishing features include flexible page components, patterns, styles, callouts, workflows, revisions, service contacts and shareable preview links. Optional workflow tools add roles, permissions, moderation, approval dashboards, scheduled publishing, review dates and revision records. Councils can use LocalGov Drupal Microsites to operate distinct websites from one platform; more than 50 microsites are live. The project supplies a scalable base theme and sample Scarfolk subtheme, along with quick-start installation, modular architecture, automated testing and coding-standards checks. Drupal REST and JSON:API tools and its module ecosystem can connect it with forms, payments, CRM, case management, identity providers, mapping and directories. Content and functionality are designed to meet or exceed WCAG 2.1 AA. The software is free, but installation and preparation require development resources, appropriate hosting and ongoing security updates.

Single Digital Presence (SDP) is a web publishing platform for Victorian Government websites, established on Drupal in 2016. Its CMS provides publishing tools, data collection forms, revision history, federated approvals and domain redirect management. Each website receives Google Analytics dashboards. The service also provides security assessments and updates, Drupal and Ripple upgrades, outage and update alerts, bot protection and disaster recovery. The Ripple design system supplies styles, components and patterns for Victorian Government branded digital products. SDP’s design framework states technical and design compliance to Level AA of the latest WCAG accessibility standards. Victorian public servants can access online content training, a help centre and a Community of Practice. Technical support covers website bugs, malfunctioning elements and CMS assistance; 24/7 emergency support applies to outages and emergencies covered by the service level agreement. The service runs over 140 instances across 60 sites. Creating a new section on vic.gov.au costs nothing and requires approval from the lead department’s Digital Management Committee. Independent websites or components require a quote after a requirements document; some features and services incur charges.