Formidable Forms
The forms plugin just opened its data to AI agents through an MCP adapter.
Comparison · Mkt Auto
Craft CMS vs Drip
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Craft CMS and Drip — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Craft CMS vs Drip: at a glance
What is Craft CMS?
Craft 6 is being rebuilt on Laravel, and the alphas are breaking plugins to get there.
Craft runs two trains at once: a 6.0.0 alpha series rearchitecting the CMS, and 5.10.x patches that are single-bug fixes shipped within hours of each other. The alphas carry the work — queue jobs and dependency resolution moved onto Laravel's service container, control-panel serialization switched to Illuminate helpers, the imagine image library replaced with intervention/image, and a first-party control-panel component library added. Alpha 14 shipped with an explicit breaking-changes notice for plugin authors.
What is Drip?
Two-month digests that keep circling the same theme: get your data out of Drip and into your own stack.
Drip publishes a bi-monthly release digest rather than per-feature notes, and the feed carries only the opening paragraph of each — so the specifics are off-feed and what's readable is the framing. That framing has been consistent through 2026: access to and visibility into your own data. April and May were about pulling campaign metrics into external reporting stacks and product-level visibility; June and July extend that to connecting AI tools directly to Drip data, plus deeper campaign performance reporting.
Craft CMS vs Drip: editorial side-by-side
Craft CMS
6.3MKT AUTO
Craft 6 is being rebuilt on Laravel, and the alphas are breaking plugins to get there.
◆ Current state
Craft runs two trains at once: a 6.0.0 alpha series rearchitecting the CMS, and 5.10.x patches that are single-bug fixes shipped within hours of each other. The alphas carry the work — queue jobs and dependency resolution moved onto Laravel's service container, control-panel serialization switched to Illuminate helpers, the imagine image library replaced with intervention/image, and a first-party control-panel component library added. Alpha 14 shipped with an explicit breaking-changes notice for plugin authors.
◆ Where it's heading
The direction is a Laravel-native Craft: Artisan command discovery, container-resolved queue jobs, Illuminate helpers, and plugins that no longer register through composer extra fields or automatic trait lifecycle hooks. The image pipeline swap brings libvips and formats like HEIC, JPEG XL and TIFF along with it. Meanwhile 5.10 receives nothing but same-day bug fixes, which is what a maintenance branch looks like once the team's attention has moved.
◆ Prediction
Expect further alphas to keep narrowing the plugin API surface ahead of a beta, with the 5.10 line continuing at one or two same-day patch releases a week.
Drip
2.5MKT AUTO
Two-month digests that keep circling the same theme: get your data out of Drip and into your own stack.
◆ Current state
Drip publishes a bi-monthly release digest rather than per-feature notes, and the feed carries only the opening paragraph of each — so the specifics are off-feed and what's readable is the framing. That framing has been consistent through 2026: access to and visibility into your own data. April and May were about pulling campaign metrics into external reporting stacks and product-level visibility; June and July extend that to connecting AI tools directly to Drip data, plus deeper campaign performance reporting.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc across the last four digests moves from operational polish (Shopify triggers, WooCommerce accounts, email deliverability visibility) toward treating Drip as a data source other systems read, not a destination that owns the data. Connecting AI tools to that data is the newest step on the same line. Cadence is slow and steady — roughly one digest every two months — so each one bundles a quarter's worth of small changes rather than announcing anything on its own.
◆ Prediction
The next digest will likely detail what the AI-tool connection actually is, since the feed excerpt announces the capability without naming the mechanism.
Alternatives to Craft CMS and Drip
Other Mkt Auto products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Craft CMS or Drip.
Pimcore
A security-hardening train: nine advisories across six patch releases, no feature work in sight.
n8n
Three release lines running in parallel, all of them shipping nothing but fixes this week
OpnForm
OpnForm is turning its V2 platform into an automation surface, one integration at a time.
Zoho Social
Zoho Social opens its management surface to AI assistants via MCP.
AWeber
AWeber is moving the console out of the browser and into the chat window
See all Craft CMS alternatives → · See all Drip alternatives →
Recent activity from Craft CMS and Drip
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1d agoDripJune & July 2026: connect AI tools to Drip data, deeper campaign reporting
- 6d agoCraft CMSAlpha 16 fixes double-required migrations and a widget gap
- 6d agoCraft CMS5.10.13.2 fixes a SQL error on empty Categories fields
- 7d agoCraft CMS5.10.13.1 restores rendering of sanitized SVGs
- 7d agoCraft CMSCraft 6 swaps its image pipeline to intervention/image and libvips
- 20d agoCraft CMSCraft 6 alpha 14 breaks plugin providers and lifecycle hooks ⚡
- 26d agoCraft CMSCraft 6 moves queues and DI onto Laravel's container
- 2mo agoDripApril & May 2026: campaign metrics for external reporting stacks
- 4mo agoDripFeb & March 2026: email visibility and behind-the-scenes reliability
- 6mo agoDripEarly 2026: smarter Shopify triggers, cleaner WooCommerce accounts
- 10mo agoDripOct 2025: Embedded Forms return with full CSS control
- 0y agoDripJune & July 2025 product updates
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Craft CMS and Drip?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Craft CMS is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Craft CMS better than Drip?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Craft CMS is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 2.5), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Mkt Auto products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Craft CMS?
Top Craft CMS alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Craft CMS alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/craft-cms for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to Drip?
Top Drip alternatives in Mkt Auto are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Drip alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/drip for the full list with editorial commentary on each.