On January 5th, we bid farewell to Drupal 7 as it reached the end of its official support. Just ten days later, on January 15th, we celebrate the 24th anniversaries of two major open web projects: the release of Drupal 1.0 and the launch of Wikipedia. This year, January 15th also marks the debut of Drupal CMS 1.0, a significant evolution in Drupal’s journey.
Drupal CMS is an ideal choice for smaller websites, whether for professional use or personal and community projects. Its streamlined approach and innovative features make it an attractive option for anyone looking to create a simple, yet dynamic, user-friendly website.
Introducing Drupal CMS 1.0: A User-Friendly Solution Built on Core Strengths
Drupal Core remains a robust framework for building custom CMS solutions, and Drupal CMS takes this foundation to the next level. Born from the Starshot initiative launched less than a year ago, Drupal CMS aims to be the gold standard of no-code website building catering to an audience of site builders, digital content creators and marketing professionals, seeking a web solution with all the power, security and scalability of Drupal, but preconfigured to get them started. Drupal CMS leverages the power of Core while providing pre-installed, configurable elements through an innovative “recipes” solution.
Recipes streamline the setup of essential CMS features, such as media management, accessibility, SEO, privacy, and AI tools. They include ready-to-use content types like Blog, News, and Events. Selected during installation, these recipes reflect years of accumulated best practice, making it easier to address basic CMS needs with minimal effort.
The Growing Role of Recipes and AI in Drupal
The community’s focus is expected to intensify on refining recipes, with one of Zoocha's Senior Drupal Developers the recipe lead for accessibility in Drupal CMS.
Among many standout features of Drupal CMS is the AI recipe, which offers transformative capabilities for content creators. With just a click, it can generate, translate, or adjust the tone of content, saving time and effort. Furthermore, the AI-powered Drupal Agent Chatbot empowers non-technical users by enabling site configuration changes through a chatbot interface—a groundbreaking step toward democratising CMS management.
Watch for about 5 minutes: AI-powered Drupal Agent Chatbot demo from DrupalCon Barcelona.
Frequent Releases and an Exciting Future
Drupal CMS development is progressing at an accelerated pace, with quarterly releases ensuring a steady stream of updates. Built on the current version of Drupal Core, which follows a semi-annual release schedule, Drupal CMS 2.0 is anticipated by year-end. This release will feature the innovative Experience Builder, a cutting-edge page creation tool to be included in Drupal Core. Experience Builder combines the strengths of popular solutions like Paragraphs and Layout Builder with a modern React-based front-end, setting a new standard in page-building experiences.
Watch for about 3 minutes: Experience Builder demo from DrupalCon Barcelona.
Looking Ahead: Upgrading to Drupal 11
Drupal Core is currently at version 11.1, and we aim to upgrade our clients’ sites to Drupal 11 around mid-year. While major updates like this typically introduce only incremental improvements, the innovations fuelling Drupal CMS provide a strong incentive to explore the new features in Drupal 11 and CMS recipes. This upgrade presents a prime opportunity to enhance your website’s functionality and embrace the cutting-edge capabilities shaping Drupal’s future.
Is Drupal CMS Right for Me?
Want to find out more about Drupal CMS or the improvements that can be leveraged as part of an upgrade to Drupal 11? Our Drupal experts will be on hand to talk you through the differentiators, benefits and opportunities of both Drupal CMS and Drupal 11, just reach out to your Client Services Manager or our business development team at [email protected].