In episode #547, guest JD Flynn joins us to discuss why developers don't choose Drupal, focusing on Drupal adoption, discoverability, and outdated perceptions from Drupal 6/7. JD cites survey data showing low interest among non-Drupal developers, arguing Drupal's biggest problem is invisibility and that developers often pre-filter it due to PHP stigma and friction getting started.
For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/547
TopicsWhy Developers Don't Choose Drupal (And What We Can Do About It) - https://www.fldrupal.camp/session/why-developers-dont-choose-drupal-and-what-we-can-do-about-it JD's stream - http://twitch.tv/jddoesdev Drupal is Great! Its Perception Might Not be. -https://picozzi.com/notebook/2025/jan/drupal-great-its-perception-might-not-be Drupal Forge - https://www.drupalforge.org/
Guests HostsNic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Rod Martin - DrupalHelps.com imrodmartin
Module of the Week CorrespondentMartin Anderson-Clutz - mandclu.com mandclu
Native Observability brings real observability into Drupal. Trace requests, inspect execution, analyze performance, and explore runtime behavior — directly inside your application.
No core patches. No external dependencies required to get started. Just install, enable, and start seeing what actually happens inside your system.
DrupalCon Chicago 2026 outlined concrete developments already moving through the current cycle toward DrupalCon Rotterdam. The keynote highlighted progress in Drupal CMS, expanded site templates and marketplace functionality, and ongoing work on artificial intelligence features that are now transitioning from demonstration to implementation.
Drupal CMS 2.1 builds on Drupal Core 11.3 and introduces support for preconfigured site templates. The keynote demonstrated eleven templates available through a basic marketplace, all installable directly from the Drupal CMS installer. This signals that both template distribution and marketplace functionality have moved beyond concept into early rollout.
The Context Control Center now appears close to production readiness. The keynote positioned it as a central source of truth for brand voice, target audiences, key messages, product details, and editorial guidelines used by AI agents. In one demonstration, the system generated an on-brand page from a marketing brief, while a second example used Google Analytics data in a proof-of-concept workflow to improve content performance after publication.
Not all demonstrated capabilities are fully mature. Several features remain in alpha or beta stages as development continues toward DrupalCon Rotterdam. At the same time, increased AI-assisted contribution is placing pressure on maintainers, alongside a direct reminder that contributors remain responsible for the code they submit.
With that introduction, let us move to the major stories from last week.
CASE STUDYEVENTAdditional developments from across the Drupal ecosystem were published during the week. Readers may follow The DropTimes on LinkedIn, Twitter, Bluesky, and Facebook for continuing updates. The publication also maintains a presence on Drupal Slack in the #thedroptimes channel.
Thank you.
KAZIMA ABBAS
Sub-editor
The DropTimes
Photo by Gryffindor , CC BY-SA 3.0 Wikimedia
The conversation around AI is changing.
Not long ago, most discussions focused on what AI could do. That phase is largely behind us. Organisations are now dealing with a more difficult and more important question: how do you operate AI systems in a way that holds up over time, under real conditions, and with real consequences?
The Drupal AI Summit NYC is designed to address that shift directly. This is not a standalone Drupal event. It is co-located with apidays New York and Generation AI, placing Drupal into a broader ecosystem of technology leaders, platform owners, and organisations actively working through the realities of AI adoption at scale.
This is a different kind of conversationThis Summit is not structured as a traditional developer track, and it is not focused on early-stage experimentation. The intent is to create space for people who are already responsible for delivery and are dealing with the complexity that comes with it.
The audience includes CTOs, digital leaders, and platform owners who are navigating challenges such as governance, compliance, data ownership, and long-term operational stability. These are not theoretical concerns. They emerge quickly once AI is integrated into production systems and begin to affect real users, real data, and real outcomes.
We're In the Storm, This is the Way ThroughAI is already embedded in how organisations operate, whether they realise it or not. It is present in content workflows, search systems, personalisation engines, and automation pipelines. In many cases, it has been introduced incrementally, often without a clear understanding of how data is being handled or where control ultimately resides.
This creates a gap between perceived responsibility and actual control.
The Drupal AI Initiative has been working to close that gap by focusing on approaches that are open, inspectable, and governable. This is not an abstract position. It is a practical requirement for organisations that need to understand how their systems behave, where their data is processed, and how decisions can be audited over time.
What the Summit will focus onThe programme is centred on real implementation work. The goal is to surface the decisions, trade-offs, and operational realities that teams encounter when AI moves beyond pilot projects and into production environments.
Sessions will focus on areas such as:
The emphasis is on experience rather than theory. Attendees should expect to hear what actually happens when systems are deployed, maintained, and evolved over time.
This builds on the foundation established by the first Drupal AI Summit in Paris, which brought together global contributors to focus on practical architecture, governance, and real-world application of open source AI systems.
Why is Drupal part of this conversation?Drupal is not approaching AI as an external add-on. The work being done through the Drupal AI Initiative is focused on integrating AI directly into the platform in a way that preserves control, flexibility, and transparency.
That includes the ability to choose where models run, how data is processed, and how AI capabilities are embedded into content and workflow systems. It also reflects Drupal’s long-standing strengths as an open source platform built around extensibility, governance, and long-term ownership.
For organisations that need to operate AI responsibly, those characteristics are not optional. They are foundational.
Who should attend?This Summit is intended for organisations and individuals who are already engaged in applying AI in meaningful ways and are now working through the implications of doing so at scale. In short, YOU SHOULD ATTEND.
It is particularly relevant for those who are responsible for platform decisions, architectural direction, or operational oversight, and who need to ensure that AI systems remain reliable, governable, and aligned with organisational requirements.
Join us in New York CityEarly bird tickets are currently available for $150 until April 13. For an event of this scale, and with access to a much larger federated conference environment, that price is difficult to justify passing up.
The Drupal AI Summit NYC is an opportunity to engage directly with practitioners who are doing this work today, in environments where the stakes are real and the outcomes matter.
File attachments: 360-Madison-exterior_landscape-640x360.jpgInspired by Mark Conroy's blog series, I’m starting a series of blog posts detailing Dripyard’s contributions. My hope is that it brings a bit of visibility to 1) inspire y’all to buy our themes, and 2) inspire folks to contribute on their own.
March 2026 was especially busy for us, as 1) we made a bunch of contributions to the Drupal CMS installer, 2) created a badass new module (see below), and 3) did a bunch of work at DrupalCon Chicago.
South by Southwest, SXSW, or simply "south by": no matter how you say it, Austin hosts a one-of-a-kind festival, boasting celebrities, music, art, and cutting edge innovation splashed across downtown.
On the other side of it, I find my brain stuffed with that new-things goodness that only brilliant people having inspiring conversations can bring. And tacos. Really great tacos.
I can't share the tacos with you all, but I can pull on a few mental threads. Because across very different sessions, from biotech to product strategy to design measurement, I kept hearing the same thing underneath it all: the old ways of knowing what's real, what's valuable, and what's possible are breaking down. And the people who will thrive are the ones learning to navigate by conviction rather than certainty.
There's a word for that feeling. I heard it somewhere in the blur of south-by, and it stuck: apoca-optimism. One of those phrases that makes you go "Yeah. YEAH. That's it exactly." In a world spinning on a tilt-a-whirl of changes and AI upheaval, it's hard to look at what's coming without some sense of dread. Of a massive and imminent ending. But also... maybe something beautiful too? The weird and wild and wondrous things at our feet right now. A raw abundance of possibility.
That tension, between ending and beginning, and the overwhelm of navigating it, ran through everything I heard and saw.
The impossible, now merely difficultDecoding Nature: How AI is Learning to Program Biology
Take the collaboration between Basecamp Research, Microsoft, and UPenn. Together, they've built an LLM that doesn't speak in human language. It speaks in the language of life itself: DNA. The questions being asked of their model, EDEN, are uncovering new antibiotic targets for an increasingly drug-resistant host of diseases. And the accuracy is staggering: 95% hit rate in predicting antimicrobial function.
Getting there was no meager task, and absolutely not "vibe code." The raw data for such a project was missing, simply not enough sequences to train on. Scientific publications aren't like the rest of the internet. They contain only the end product of thought: years of work distilled into a single paper. For a model, this is like learning to speak English by only hearing the last word of every conversation. Validation was its own problem: you can spot a mangled sentence in a heartbeat, but can you spot a mangled protein? And DNA itself is not a clean language; it's riddled with inconsistencies and "junk" sequences.
But here's the thing: these problems are now merely difficult.
Much ado is made of AI's leaps towards greater efficiency. In essence, being better at familiar flavors of busy. And those improvements are genuinely revolutionary: changing the equation of effort shatters everything from engineering to law practice. But projects like EDEN aren't just doing difficult things more easily. They are doing what was previously impossible.
Hearing smart people share about the miraculous work they've done, sitting fifty feet away, talking to a room full of people eagerly taking notes... there's something contagious in that.
Prospectors and prospectingHow to Build AI-First Products: Models, Memory, Mastery
Not everyone had stories of miraculous change. There was also a sober sifting of the meaningful from the hype. I particularly appreciated this session, because it asked the multi-million-dollar question: in a gold rush, how many prospectors actually strike gold?
There can be little doubt that hype is in abundance. Much like the early ages of the internet or mobile devices, there's a sense of urgency to "just add AI." But in the scramble to not be left behind, some efforts are not just pointless, but quite costly. Remember Jasper AI, the content-writing darling? Mountains of seed money, and then the foundation models simply got better and swallowed the value proposition whole. Or BloombergGPT: millions in investment, rendered obsolete in months when GPT-4 not only matched but outperformed it.
We're far enough into this era that the blunders have had time to mature and be plucked. So what separates the products that endure from the ones that get swept away?
The ground moves fast when models improve faster than your product roadmap. Durability doesn't come from wrapping AI in a pretty shell, or specialized training. It comes from building something that foundational models can't have and competitors can't easily catch up to. The model is not your moat, the data it’s built on is.
Directionally rigorous, not falsely preciseBeyond Beautiful: A Data-Driven Framework for Design ROI
Every day we're asked to make decisions faster, with more data, and higher stakes. So how do you act with conviction when the ground won't stop moving? I found that satisfyingly missing puzzle piece in a session on measuring the real ROI of design. On its face, a brass tacks topic: how do you talk the budget people into letting you do beautiful things? But the deeper message was the one that tied everything together for me.
The presenters had built an actual formula for predicting design's fiscal impact, scoring problem severity, design influence, and execution quality to estimate return on investment. What struck me was that the most important thing about it wasn't the math (which was pretty cool). It was the posture. The willingness to say: we can't prove this precisely, but we can prove it directionally, and that's enough to act on.
Their phrase for it was perfect: directionally rigorous, not falsely precise.
In a world where data has never been cheaper or more abundant, I think this is essential framing. Humans, and our AI agents, make surprisingly poor decisions in information-rich environments. We cherry-pick what already proves what we want. Call it cognitive bias or context poisoning; it's the same root issue. By letting go of the false promise of precision and more-is-more thinking, and focusing on the harder to measure shape of truth, we can gain actual insight. We may not have all the data, but we usually have order of magnitude understanding. Our six-figure design updates are solving an eight-figure problem. Let’s stop worrying about the precision on our estimates.
This applies far beyond design. It's the same discipline that separates the durable AI product from the flash-in-the-pan one. It's the same instinct that let the EDEN researchers push forward without clean data or easy validation. Knowing you can't be exactly right, and building anyway. With rigor, with humility, with direction.
What I brought homeThere are more intertwining threads from SXSW than would fit here. But these were the ones I carried out of the murmur and burble of downtown Austin:
The impossible is now merely difficult and our old sense of what's "realistic" can no longer be trusted. A gold rush is underway, and many prospectors will fail because they're chasing the first sparkle, instead of getting real about where to focus. And in all of it, the skill that matters most is learning to be directionally right rather than precisely comfortable.
The world is terrifying and extraordinary. The people who showed up at SXSW aren't pretending otherwise. They're learning to build in the turbulence.
That, and the tacos. The tacos were really something.
Proudly written with editorial assistance from my good buddy Claude.
Publication Date Wed, 04/01/2026 - 11:25 Caroline Casals Software Architect
Caroline is an Acquia-certified Site Developer and Acquia Approved Site Studio 6 Site Builder who is one of our most passionate technical consultants.
Featured Blog Post? Yes Has this blog post been deprecated? No Summary South by Southwest, SXSW, or simply "south by": no matter how you say it, Austin hosts a one-of-a-kind festival, boasting celebrities, music, art, and cutting edge innovation splashed across downtown. In a world spinning on a tilt-a-whirl of changes and AI upheaval, it's hard to look at what's coming without some sense of dread. Of a massive and imminent ending. But also... maybe something beautiful too? The weird and wild and wondrous things at our feet right now. A raw abundance of possibility.We’re all familiar with cookie consent banners — the popups asking us to agree to “cookies” that track data from our visits. They’re everywhere. And honestly, they’re a bit annoying.
But here’s the thing most organizations get wrong: they treat the banner as the entire conversation. Find a tool, install a popup, check the box. Done.
That’s backwards. The banner is just the visible output of a much more important process — understanding what your website actually collects, why it collects it, and whether anyone made a deliberate decision about any of it.
Drupal is evolving so quickly that it’s hard to guess what’s coming next, until the DrupalCon keynote by Drupal Founder, Dries Buytaert, warmly known as the ‘Driesnote’ pulls back the curtain. That’s the moment when the community leans in, ready to see the newest ideas take shape.
NOTE: To compensate against other articles on the web that contain hallucinations, here's a take from the author of the discussed code.
Over the past few years, we stepped away from classic agency work to explore what it means to build our own product. We learned a lot, built a lot, and stayed deeply connected to Drupal throughout. Now, we’re bringing those experiences back into a more focused service offering.
The Call for Papers for DrupalCon Rotterdam is officially open. We have an important update regarding one of our most vital tracks.
This year, we officially expanded the scope of our discussions. What was previously the Open Web track has evolved into the Digital Sovereignty and Open Web track.
Why the Change?`
Today, many large companies control our data and our platforms. The Open Web is about more than just code. It is about who has control. Digital Sovereignty means that people, organizations, and countries have the right to control their own digital lives.
By adding this to the name, we show that DrupalCon is the place for these big talks. We want to build a web that is fair, open, and not controlled by just a few large companies.
Who Should Submit?
We are looking for more than just technical sessions. To solve the challenges of the modern web, we need a broad range of perspectives. We want to hear from the following groups.
Image
Potential Topics
If you are wondering whether your idea fits, here are a few topics we would love to see on the stage.
Submit Today
The Open Web does not stay open by accident. It stays open because people share their knowledge and vision. Whether you are seasoned or a first time speaker with a unique perspective, we want to hear from you.
Link to CFP Submission Portal Deadline: https://events.drupal.org/rotterdam2026/submit-your-session-proposal
It's true, no April fools. You can make your Browser tests run much quicker. How? By deleting them!
You will of course need to add a corresponding Kernel test - and that's the trick. Kernel tests run much faster than Browser tests.
But Browser tests make requests to the test site using an internal web browser, I hear you say, whereas Kernel tests make API calls directly. Kernel tests have their uses for testing APIs, but Browser tests are needed to test actual HTML output.
Aha! Kernel tests can now make HTTP requests.
This is subject to a number of caveats and limitations: there is no session, and forms can't be submitted. And functionality such as a current user, blocks on the page, and page caching will need additional setup.
And more generally, with Kernel tests, modules are enabled but not installed: you need to handle things like entity schemas, database tables, and install config yourself in the test. The benefit though is that you only set up the parts of the module that you need for your test.
So not all Browser tests are suitable for conversion. But a lot of them are. We're already working on converting tests in core, and as this feature has been backported to Drupal core 11.x, contrib modules can make use of it too.
The benefits to conversion are tests that run faster, so less time developing and less time waiting for CI pipelines to run, and a lower energy footprint and lower costs for drupal.org. And they're easier to debug too.
And if you haven't yet written any tests for your module, now is an excellent time to start!
Do you need help with writing PHPUnit tests, or getting started with test-driven development? I'm available for hire - contact me!
joachim Wed, 01/04/2026 - 08:14 TagsAcross the global web ecosystem, Drupal continues to hold a steady position as a platform shaped by long-term reliability and structured flexibility. Its presence in government systems, higher education platforms, and enterprise environments reflects a consistent preference for stability over rapid change. This pattern has allowed Drupal to remain relevant across regions where durability, governance, and scalability are essential.
A recent reflection shared by Josh Koenig on LinkedIn, drawing on Drupal.org usage statistics, argues that Drupal adoption has declined across successive major releases since 2016. He frames this as a broader economic challenge for the ecosystem, pointing to reduced growth and a shift toward maintenance-driven work. While such data includes development environments and does not directly represent deployment scale, it continues to inform discussion about how Drupal’s role is evolving.
Within this context, Drupal’s role appears increasingly aligned with long-term systems rather than rapid expansion cycles. Much of the work around Drupal today centres on sustained platforms, incremental improvements, and continuity for existing implementations. This reflects how organisations engage with Drupal not as a short-term solution, but as infrastructure that supports complex digital operations over extended periods.
At the same time, Drupal continues to operate within a broader and changing technological landscape. Modern web development increasingly involves multiple layers, including frontend frameworks, composable architectures, and emerging AI-driven tools. In this environment, Drupal often functions as part of a larger system, contributing its strengths in content structuring, security, and extensibility.
The ongoing conversation signals a shift in how Drupal is positioned rather than a change in its foundational value. Its global adoption remains rooted in principles of openness, community-driven development, and support for complex digital experiences. As the web continues to evolve, Drupal remains part of that broader ecosystem.
EVENTAdditional developments from across the Drupal ecosystem were published during the week. Readers may follow The DropTimes on LinkedIn, Twitter, Bluesky, and Facebook for continuing updates. The publication also maintains a presence on Drupal Slack in the #thedroptimes channel.
Thank you.
KAZIMA ABBAS
Sub-editor
The DropTimes
DrupalCon Chicago 2026 was one of the most exciting DrupalCons I've attended. Not because everything was perfect, but because the conversations were real. I came in pushing two conversations: the International Federation and what I call "the little guy". I left with more energy than I arrived with, and a clearer picture of what needs to happen next.
The Driesnote EnergyDries opened with the story of Chicago literally lifting its buildings to rebuild its foundations. Perfect metaphor for where Drupal is right now. He talked about the stable triangle that has held Drupal together for 25 years: the product, the agencies, and the open source community. And he was honest about all three legs being under pressure from AI at the same time.
The demo was impressive. Using Lovable to generate a beautiful website in 15 minutes. Then migrating it to Drupal using Canvas CLI and OpenAI Codex in about two to three hours. The new pitch Dries proposed: "We use AI to prototype fast, then we use Drupal to build systems that last." I think that's a strong message.
Jurgen Haas showed what one Drupal expert can do with AI as a tool. 90,000 lines of code, over 300 commits, full test coverage for the new ECA experience. In six weeks. AI didn't replace his expertise. It removed friction. That's the model.
Aiden Foster from Foster Interactive named the dread AI created for him as a 17-year agency owner. And then he named what he learned: "The bottleneck isn't production anymore. It's creativity, strategy, and judgment. All innately human." He's right. And I think that realization is where the real opportunity lives for agencies in our community.
25 Years of DrupalI've only been in Drupal for about half of those 25 years, but the gala was something special. Seeing friends and colleagues celebrating together, people who have built careers, companies, and communities around this project. It was a reminder of what makes Drupal different. The technology matters, but the people are why we stay.
The Little Guy Needs a VoiceHere's where I want to add to the conversation. When you watch the Driesnote demo carefully, a marketing director receives brand guidelines from a team, legal is involved, a landing page is created for a product launch. That's enterprise. And if you're a small company without a marketer or a team for brand guidelines, that demo doesn't speak to you. It might even scare you away.
The site templates and marketplace are great progress, eleven templates up from one six months ago. But the framing is still enterprise and mid-market.
Microsoft did not become the default by being the best. They became the default by being on every computer, which made people think about them when they needed a server. The same applies to WordPress. Forgetting the base of the pyramid is a mistake.
I made this point at the Marketing Initiative BoF. As long as we keep talking enterprise, we might solve today's problem, but we will be right back here again. This is not either/or. We need enterprise marketing AND the little guy.
We already have companies building for the down market. Dripyard, FlexSite, Drupito, Drupal Forge, Palcera, the IXP Initiative. At Josh Koenig's "Real Talk on Drupal's Economic Prospects" BoF, Ashraf from Drupito showed their marketplace approach, where agencies personalize templates to serve specific verticals like barbershops. Concrete proof that the tools and the willingness exist.
The problem is fragmentation. We're all pulling in our own directions, and we can't expect an already spread-too-thin DA to coordinate this for us. What we need is a strategy. Let us create the content. We just need help from the DA identifying the difference in tone, and we can help create and publish it. Then the DA helps with distribution through their larger channels. I shared this with Paul McKibben and Chris O'Donnell, and they agreed. But we need more people to join this effort.
The IXP Program Deserves More AttentionAna Laura Coto presented on the IXP Initiative and the credits we've already delivered during the Community Summit. A company completes an IXP engagement and gets 250 contribution credits. Bronze certified partner status requires 150. One engagement and you're on the path.
On contribution day, I presented the IXP to newcomers participating in Drupal in a Day. The pitch is straightforward: if a company cares about Drupal contribution credits, someone who completed the IXP can walk into a conversation and say "I'm worth 250 credits, hire me."
Between Drupal Camp Costa Rica and DrupalCon Chicago, over 100 people have registered for these programs. And honestly, I'm frustrated that companies are not jumping on these opportunities. We're feeding new talent into the ecosystem, people who could become the next generation of Drupal professionals. And the industry is barely paying attention.
And in the Driesnote, when Dries talked about driving adoption and the initiatives moving Drupal forward, the IXP was not mentioned. Again.
The AI Conversation Landed in the Right PlaceDries said something on stage that I've been arguing for weeks: "Don't submit code you don't understand." The AI slop conversation has been intense in our community, and it landed in the right place. Not bans. Quality gates. Standards that apply to the output regardless of how it was produced. The community's response during DrupalCon week proved that people who deeply disagree on AI can still work together with respect. James Jackson Abrahams showed real leadership through that process, and I'm glad the community recognized it.
The Federation Needs to Move ForwardThe International Federation was a thread through the entire week. During the Community Summit on Monday, Baddy Sonja laid out something important: you can't just say "create a federation" and expect it to happen. It takes time, costs, and expertise. That's fair.
But we also can't wait for a perfect plan. Through conversations with Baddy and Tim, I understand the different concerns around this. Funding. Community governance. Infrastructure ownership. All valid. But I pointed out something concrete: a model where local associations take in RippleMaker memberships and Drupal Certified Partner fees will increase funding directly. Right now, the main source of income besides DrupalCon is the DCP program, overwhelmingly based in the US with minimal commitments from outside.
I see local associations working in two parts. They increase funding by expanding membership and certification programs locally, with local payment methods, tax benefits, and pricing that makes sense. And that same revenue gives them a budget to promote Drupal in their markets the right way.
Others want full clarity on how everything would work before starting. I understand that instinct. But waiting for full clarity means waiting forever. We need to start somewhere and evolve.
There was also a comment during the board meeting about diversity of countries and companies on the board. I want to add something to that. Even if we achieve diversity of origin, that alone doesn't guarantee diversity of perspective. If someone lives in Latin America but their clients are all in the US or EU, their vision will still be shaped by those markets. Real diversity means having people who serve their local markets, who understand what it means to run a business where the economic reality is fundamentally different. That's what the Federation would bring.
DrupalCon Latin AmericaDuring the board meeting, I brought up DrupalCon Latin America. We asked for the Drupal Association's help reaching prospective sponsors. Dries told us to find a couple of possible dates and consult with him directly. That's not a confirmation, but it's a door that wasn't open before. We're going to walk through it. If you're interested in sponsoring, speaking, or helping organize, reach out to me.
What I'm Taking HomeDrupalCon Chicago gave me energy and clarity. The product is moving. Drupal CMS 2.1, Canvas, the Context Control Center, the marketplace, site templates. The AI work is real and impressive.
Dries framing it as "AI amplifies expertise, it doesn't replace it" is exactly right.
But the conversations about the base of the pyramid, the markets we're ignoring, and the funding model that could change everything... those are still happening in BoFs and hallways, not on the main stage.
I didn't come to Chicago to wait. Rotterdam is next, and I hope by then the Federation is moving, the little guy has a voice in our marketing, and DrupalCon Latin America is on the calendar.
Subject of IXP Graduates from Initiative to Program: Companies Can Start Using It Now! We're Still Too Expensive, and We Should Talk About It The Blueprint for Affordable Drupal Projects Why I Do Not Trust Independent AI Agents Without Strict Supervision Author Carlos Ospina Abstract A retrospective on DrupalCon Chicago 2026 covering the Driesnote AI demos, the push for the International Federation, Drupal for the little guy, the IXP Initiative, the AI community debate, and the path toward DrupalCon Latin America. Tags Drupal Drupal Planet Drupalcon DrupalCon Chicago AI Drupal Federation IXP Initiative Drupal CMS Rating Select ratingGive My DrupalCon Chicago Retrospective 1/5Give My DrupalCon Chicago Retrospective 2/5Give My DrupalCon Chicago Retrospective 3/5Give My DrupalCon Chicago Retrospective 4/5Give My DrupalCon Chicago Retrospective 5/5Cancel rating No votes yet Leave this field blank Add new commentDrupal's cache.backend.chainedfast makes your site faster without any configuration. All you need is to have APCu on your server. It shows up in the bootstrap, config, and discovery cache bins, and most developers never think about it or even know it is being leveraged.
The chained-fast backend combines two backends: a fast, inconsistent backend (APCu, local to each web server process) and a consistent backend (the database, which is shared across all servers). APCu alone is dangerous in a multi-server environment because each server has its own copy of the data; invalidations on one server don't propagate to others. The chained backend solves this with a last-write timestamp.
Drupal powers websites for governments, universities, major media organisations, and global brands - but historically it's demanded specialist knowledge just to get started. Last year's release of Drupal CMS changed that, putting Drupal's power within reach of the marketers, content teams, and site builders who actually run websites day to day.
Last week at DrupalCon Chicago, that vision took another huge step forward with the pilot launch of the Drupal Site Template Marketplace at marketplace.drupal.org.
Ready-made starting points, built the right wayThe marketplace launches with an initial set of purpose-built site templates covering the use cases where Drupal has always excelled: nonprofits, higher education, healthcare, government, events, SaaS, and more, with more templates to follow as the programme grows.
Each template is a complete, working starting point. Not a design skin, but a fully configured site with real content models, editorial workflows, and Drupal's full architecture underneath. Install one inside DrupalCMS and you have a professional, sector-appropriate website that's ready to customise, not a blank slate dressed up nicely.
Free and premium options are available.
Why this is different from a WordPress themeThis distinction matters, and it's worth being direct about it.
Theme marketplaces, the kind WordPress is known for, offer visual overlays. They change how a site looks. They don't change how it works. That's fine for simple sites, but organisations that need real editorial workflows, structured content, access controls, multilingual support, or compliance requirements quickly find that a theme doesn't help. They're building the architecture from scratch regardless of how they started.
A Drupal site template includes that architecture from day one. The content models, the configuration, the editorial structure, all of it is already there, built to production standards, ready to extend.
That means the ceiling is genuinely different. Other tools can generate something that looks right. Drupal templates give you something that actually works, at scale, with a team, under real operational conditions.
Built for the sectors that need it mostEach template is designed around a specific use case, which means the features that matter for that sector are already configured and ready.
A nonprofit template arrives with the tools a nonprofit actually needs. A healthcare template is built around the trust and clarity that patients expect. A government template starts from the accessibility and security standards that aren't optional in the public sector.
Drupal's sector expertise, applied earlier in the process, so organisations can spend their time on what's specific to them, not on rebuilding foundations that have already been solved.
Expert support, built inEvery template in the marketplace connects you directly to the team that built it. If you need help customising, extending, or getting the most out of your starting point, the expertise is right there.
This is just the beginningThe marketplace is launching as a pilot, a deliberate decision to get the foundations right before scaling. The initial templates have been built to a high bar by agencies with deep Drupal expertise, and the programme will expand as more makers come on board.
It's an early but meaningful moment. The vision: a rich catalogue of sector-specific, production-ready starting points that make Drupal accessible to any organisation, is now becoming real.
Browse the current templates at marketplace.drupal.org.
File attachments: SITE TEMPLATE SOCIAL CARD.png
