I'm a Blogger and I need...

• single-user or multi-user blogs (or both);
• ways to assign categories to my content;
• commenting;
• trackbacks;
• themes I can use to customize the style and layout of my site;
• support for images or other media, using contributed modules (plug-ins).
• Skills needed: (link), end-user, administrator.

I'm evaluating Drupal for my organization or company and we need...

• customizable user roles and permissions;
• robust security;
• scalability;
• functionalities we can configure and extend to meet specific business needs;
• a support infrastructure (documentation, community, etc.);
• ways to assign categories to our content;
• additional features or functionalities.
• Skills needed:  evaluator, end-user

I'm a community organizer, and I need...

• ways for community members to easily share ideas (blogs, forum, files, etc.);
• tools that our members can use to self-organize;
• to be able to evolve as the community evolves (keeping up with the state of the art for interactive web sites);
• a support infrastructure (documentation, community, etc.) ;
• customizable user roles and permissions;
• safety and security on the web (control over spam, trolls, etc.);
• preconfigured tools for community-relationship management like CivicSpace.
• Skills needed: evaluator, end-user, administrator, site developer (to some extent)

I'm a small-business owner and I need...

• a site I can set up myself;
• themes I can use to customize the style and layout of my site;
• customizable user roles and permissions;
• scalability and adaptability to the needs of my changing business;
• ways to categorize my content;
• a support infrastructure (documentation, community, etc.) ;
• e-commerce support for:
• shopping carts;
• premium paid-content subscriptions;
• functionalities that I can configure and extend to meet my specific business needs.
• Skills needed: evaluator, end-user, administrator, site developer (to a limited extent)

I build or design websites for clients and I need...

• the freedom to create a custom look and feel with my own themes;
• additional features and functionalities;
• easy-to-provide support for my clients;
• access to a community of designers and developers.
• Skills needed : evaluator, administrator, site developer, developer (to some extent)

I'm a programmer and I need...

• a robust, well-designed, modular system that I can customize and extend as needed;
• well-documented API (application programming interface)s;
• system and architecture documentation and coding standards;
• access to a community of other developers;
• a rich list of features.
• Skills needed : administrator, programmer

To determine what type of Drupal user you want to be, review the skill sets below to see what you'll need to be able to do to get started:

• Evaluator: Be familiar with web terminology and concepts.
• End-user: Be familiar with browsing, clicking, submitting web pages, selecting options.
• Administrator: Manage roles, select themes, categorize web pages (content), configure module settings, install and upgrade software and databases, apply security fixes.
• Site designer/developer: Install software, design style and layout (with CSS and minimal PHP), build and deploy websites, evaluate contributed modules, work with LAMP.
• Programmer: Program in PHP, administer databases, program through a well-defined API (application programming interface), design database objects, evaluate existing solutions, apply patches, collaborate with other developers.

Now is a good time to learn more about Drupal. The Case studies [1] section examines typical types of sites that use Drupal and gives links to real sites of each type. This section includes a listing of hundreds of Drupal sites.

In the Feature overview [2] we survey some of the most important and commonly deployed features of Drupal.

Rolling your own system vs. using Drupal [3] compares using Drupal to writing a custom web-application framework for your project.