The software that runs a Drupal-powered site is more than just code. It's the Drupal everyone sees and recognizes in Drupal sites such as those available on the Sites that use Drupal page: the common blocks and input interfaces, the administrative options, the common theme designs, etc. It is the opaqueness of the visible application behind which rests the code.

Despite the commonality which is visible in Drupal sites, there are apparent differences which define how the community interacts both within itself and across the Internet. However, these differences are yet another commonality since they demonstrate the modularity of Drupal and other CMS's to support a wide range of community needs within one installation. Communities need modularity in software design with a wide range of communication technologies in order to support self-organization at the local level of the individual community site or portal. Lee Bryant has noted that organizations commonly use a set of different "specialized" online communication technologies which may include "e-learning, knowledge sharing, project collaboration, business project management, CRM, e-commerce and publishing applications." While these systems have grown in complexity and features, users need systems which are not segmented, but rather are simpler and allow them to "learn, share and communicate better, faster and easier." Ultimately, "We need a new approach to building adaptive social applications that are easily deployed and can be humanised – not just customised – to support different types of online interaction and different modes of communication," and that these tools should "augment our social interaction rather than mange it for us" (Bryant).