Backdrop CMS is a fork of Drupal 7, created with the purpose of offering a lower barrier entry. Backdrop CMS started its existence as an offshoot or fork of Drupal. Although Backdrop originates from a common codebase with Drupal, its philosophy and organization are distinct. Backdrop practices a policy of focused releases, taking into account the feedback from the community. The overall direction is guided by the Backdrop Project Management Committee (PMC), modeled off of the Apache project. The direction of Backdrop is guided by the Backdrop Project Management Committee (PMC).

Drupal is a free software content management framework maintained and developed by a community of more than one million users. It is used as a back-end framework for at least 2.1% of all websites worldwide ranging from personal blogs to corporate, political, and government sites including whitehouse.gov and data.gov.uk. It is also used for knowledge management and business collaboration. More than one million websites are currently powered by Drupal, according to the statistics provided by Drupal.org.