Back to top

Where do you get Drupal Support

I was recently asked where the best place is to go for Drupal support if you think you have a bug but you aren't sure.

Many Venues

The question is a tough one. Looking at the Drupal Support page you see lots of options depending on what kind of support you need. For a problem with your own installation of Drupal you can take the problem to:

  1. forums
  2. support mailing list
  3. #drupal-support irc channel
  4. issue queue
  5. probably other sites

If it's technical enough, you might also want to go to the developer list or the developer irc channel but wading in there with a question that is not on-topic is a bad idea.

Which Venue is Best

It can be confusing and challenging to know which is the best option. Personally, I tend to use the support mailing list and the forums depending on the question. If there is a specific forum for my topic - like performance - I'll use that specific forum. If it's just "general support" I'll use the support list. The irc channel can get you an instant response, but sometimes it's a ghost town. The support list seems to have a higher ratio of responses/question than the forums do but it is also fairly low traffic at the moment.

Paid Support for Drupal?

There is clear demand from existing large commercial Drupal sites for support. These tend to be a mix of "fix this thing" and upgrading to new releases of the software and adding more features to a site.

I'm curious if there is demand for paid support at a smaller level. If an individual is asking for help in the forum, they get limited response, they try IRC and nobody can answer, what do they do? Do you think that you'd be willing to pay for Drupal support either via email, chat, or phone? If so, how much would you be willing to pay? Would you want to pay per question? Probably from the support side it's necessary to be paid per hour.

I've taken a couple of small jobs that somewhat fit this description. Is there demand for more?

I've also heard rumors that Spike Source was going to provide Drupal support, but can't find that on their site anywhere. If they are doing it, it's very very low key.

Drupal Support via Growing Venture Solutions

Edit: It's worth updating this post to say that my new employer Acquia now offers Support for Drupal.

Category: 
People Involved: 

Comments

more whispers on spikesource...

So...about the last comment I had about spike source being rumored to be providing Drupal support, the comment on this photo of Dries from Barcamp makes it sound like it is still going in that direction

For posterity and so you do not have to follow the link, the comment says:

Jeff Robbins, Boris Mann and myself after our Drupal meeting with SpikeSource.

Perhaps some more news of this will trickle out in a Lullabot podcast, or Planet Drupal...? Maybe I will have to call the Lullabot phone again.

And man does Jeff look like a rocker in that photo with his big watch and nose ring!

SAVES TIME

At the end of a project stuff can get pretty complicated. I would happily (convince my boss to) pay a fee for professional (and fast) support, because in the end it would save us a great dea

Paid support would definitely be something I'd consider.

I work at an advertising, consulting and web agency where I've built a number of Drupal sites for clients. Drupal and its contributed modules (like CCK and Views) kick ass, but in the fine tuning process at the end of a project stuff can get pretty complicated. I would happily (convince my boss to) pay a fee for professional (and fast) support, because in the end it would save us a great deal of money and time.