Installing Drupal with the stock installation files downloaded from Drupal.org represents a blank slate for your website. You can install a distribution if your website matches a common use case, like a company intranet or a conference website, and you would like to take advantage of some common features built by other developers.

Distributions (also known as distros) are a packaged group of files including Drupal core along with a group of themes and modules selected to address a particular need.

Different distributions are available to meet specific needs, including meeting the needs of a particular market (for example, governmental or educational institutions), or providing specific, deeply integrated functions into websites such as social media or commerce.