One year ago, at Drupal Developer Days in Leuven, something special happened.

The Drupal AI Initiative was not officially launched yet. That would happen later, in June. But Leuven was where the spark happened. It was where the first real momentum came together. Where conversations turned into commitment. Where a shared belief became a shared plan.

Five companies stepped up to kickstart the initiative: Dropsolid, Acquia, 1xINTERNET, FreelyGive, and Salsa Digital. Together, they helped turn an ambitious idea into the beginning of a movement.

Now, one year later, as we gather again at Drupal Developer Days in Athens, we celebrate one year since that moment of conception.

Leuven was where the initiative was kickstarted. June was when it officially went live. Athens is where we celebrate how far it has come.

A year of momentum, collaboration, and delivery

The Drupal AI Initiative was created with a bold ambition: to help Drupal become the leading open source CMS for AI-powered digital experiences.

But from the beginning, this was never just about adding AI features.

It was about building AI into Drupal in a way that reflects the values of the Drupal community: open, flexible, responsible, transparent, and collaborative. It was about giving organizations the tools to innovate with AI while keeping control over governance, content, security, editorial workflows, and long-term digital strategy.

Over the past year, the initiative has grown from a spark in Leuven into one of the most ambitious collaborative efforts in Drupal’s history.

What has been delivered?

Since the official launch of the Drupal AI Initiative, the team has made major progress. The amount of installs is growing significantly, 13980 at the time of writing. Adoption is accelerating. According to shared data we’re growing at about 260 sites per week and accelerating.

This is only the sites that share numbers, the real share is much higher. 

Growing numbers of Drupal AI Partners

Between Drupal Con Vienna and Chicago, the initiative added 12 new partners, a total of 34, representing a 50% increase in participation. We are on track to match this growth in support between now and DrupalCon Rotterdam, a key goal for this year.

Delivering capabilities at scale

The initiative also successfully established and executed the delivery management RFP process, putting important operational frameworks in place, including:

• Partner expectations documentation
• Onboarding processes
• Development sprint processes
• Contribution tracking
• Team planning sheets
• Weekly status reporting

These may sound like operational details, but they are what make collaboration at scale possible. They help turn enthusiasm into structure, and structure into delivery.

The Drupal AI Initiative has become the largest multi-company collaboration in Drupal community history.

- Dries Buytaert

The initiative is now actively funding critical roles across multiple organizations, including product management, innovation management, technical leadership, and program management. This marks a major milestone: the Drupal AI Initiative has become the largest multi-company collaboration in Drupal community history.

The 2026 roadmap was finalised earlier this year, informed by customer demand and industry insight. Delivery is actively underway.

At the same time, marketing efforts have been elevated to position Drupal as the leading AI-powered open source CMS globally, supported by ongoing storytelling and visibility through the Drupal AI Initiative blog.

Significant rise contribution

Focused effort on strategically important features, combined with a growing number of partners committing resources and strong community participation, has driven a significant increase in momentum and impact.

The tag clouds below visually represent the many Drupal community members who in the past 12 months have contributed to the AI Initiative (sized according to number of fixed issues worked on). Includes code and non code contributions. 

The following organizations have also contributed to the Drupal AI Initiative in the past year.

Marketing Drupal AI

From small beginnings with Paul Johnson and Frederik Wouters taking on marketing, we now have a cross disciplinary high performing team with 10 leads across areas of specialization.

Focussing on introducing Drupal to new audiences the emphasis has been on webinars, participating in external events and organising major new customer facing events of our own. These include Drupal AI Summit Paris and New York City (14th May 2026), The AI Summit London (10-11 June 2026) and the latest Enterprise AI Summit Rotterdam (28 September 2026).

Our work has included facilitating Southwark Council, London, winning Digital Leaders AI Impact Award 2026, producing video case studies and highlighting major new AI features announced during the DriesNote with social video content. All these activities have substantially raised Drupal’s profile to a wider audience.

Building toward Rotterdam

The next major milestone is already taking shape.

In Rotterdam, the initiative will launch an exclusive Drupal Enterprise AI event, available only to Drupal AI Initiative partners. The event will bring together European decision-makers aboard the SS Rotterdam for peer networking, customer case studies, and strategic conversations about building AI-powered content management solutions with Drupal.

Participation in this event is limited to partners who join the Drupal AI Initiative by June 30.

That creates a powerful moment for companies that want to be part of Drupal’s AI future. The initiative is scaling, the roadmap is active, the team is growing, and the opportunity to help shape what comes next is open now.

A strong foundation for what comes next

The Drupal AI Initiative is in a strong position.

With $380,000 in cash and $1.5 million in in-kind contributions, more than 50 contributors from partners, the initiative has the resources and commitment needed to continue scaling. The plan is to onboard an additional 12 partners by Rotterdam, further strengthening the team and accelerating delivery.

The message is clear: You counted on Drupal AI, and we delivered. Now we want to create more efficiency and scale.

That is what this next phase is about. More delivery. More visibility. More impact.

Thank you to the people who made this possible

This milestone belongs to many people.

It belongs to everyone who joined those early conversations in Leuven.

It belongs to Frederik Wouters, who brought the right people together at the right moment and helped create the spark that started it all.

It belongs to the five companies that kickstarted the initiative: Dropsolid, Acquia, 1xINTERNET, FreelyGive, and Salsa Digital.

It belongs to every partner, contributor, sponsor, strategist, developer, product thinker, marketer, and community member who has helped move this initiative forward.

And it belongs to the wider Drupal community, whose openness and willingness to collaborate make initiatives like this possible.

You can still join

The Drupal AI Initiative is growing, and companies can still become part of it.

If your organization believes in the future of Drupal, if you want to help shape responsible AI in open source, or if you want to be part of the group building the next generation of AI-powered content management, now is the time to join.

Become part of the 34 makers already helping to build Drupal’s AI future.

To join the Drupal AI Initiative as an organization and become a partner, contact Dominique at dominique@dropsolid.com.

From Leuven to Athens, this has been an incredible first year.

And the best part? We are only just getting started!
 

One year ago, at Drupal Developer Days in Leuven, something special happened.

The Drupal AI Initiative was not officially launched yet. That would happen later, in June. But Leuven was where the spark happened. It was where the first real momentum came together. Where conversations turned into commitment. Where a shared belief became a shared plan.

Five companies stepped up to kickstart the initiative: Dropsolid, Acquia, 1xINTERNET, FreelyGive, and Salsa Digital. Together, they helped turn an ambitious idea into the beginning of a movement.

Now, one year later, as we gather again at Drupal Developer Days in Athens, we celebrate one year since that moment of conception.

Leuven was where the initiative was kickstarted. June was when it officially went live. Athens is where we celebrate how far it has come.

A year of momentum, collaboration, and delivery

The Drupal AI Initiative was created with a bold ambition: to help Drupal become the leading open source CMS for AI-powered digital experiences.

But from the beginning, this was never just about adding AI features.

It was about building AI into Drupal in a way that reflects the values of the Drupal community: open, flexible, responsible, transparent, and collaborative. It was about giving organizations the tools to innovate with AI while keeping control over governance, content, security, editorial workflows, and long-term digital strategy.

Over the past year, the initiative has grown from a spark in Leuven into one of the most ambitious collaborative efforts in Drupal’s history.

What has been delivered?

Since the official launch of the Drupal AI Initiative, the team has made major progress. The amount of installs is growing significantly, 13980 at the time of writing. Adoption is accelerating. According to shared data we’re growing at about 260 sites per week and accelerating.

This is only the sites that share numbers, the real share is much higher. 

Growing numbers of Drupal AI Partners

Between Drupal Con Vienna and Chicago, the initiative added 12 new partners, a total of 34, representing a 50% increase in participation. We are on track to match this growth in support between now and DrupalCon Rotterdam, a key goal for this year.

Delivering capabilities at scale

The initiative also successfully established and executed the delivery management RFP process, putting important operational frameworks in place, including:

• Partner expectations documentation
• Onboarding processes
• Development sprint processes
• Contribution tracking
• Team planning sheets
• Weekly status reporting

These may sound like operational details, but they are what make collaboration at scale possible. They help turn enthusiasm into structure, and structure into delivery.

The Drupal AI Initiative has become the largest multi-company collaboration in Drupal community history.

- Dries Buytaert

The initiative is now actively funding critical roles across multiple organizations, including product management, innovation management, technical leadership, and program management. This marks a major milestone: the Drupal AI Initiative has become the largest multi-company collaboration in Drupal community history.

The 2026 roadmap was finalised earlier this year, informed by customer demand and industry insight. Delivery is actively underway.

At the same time, marketing efforts have been elevated to position Drupal as the leading AI-powered open source CMS globally, supported by ongoing storytelling and visibility through the Drupal AI Initiative blog.

Significant rise contribution

Focused effort on strategically important features, combined with a growing number of partners committing resources and strong community participation, has driven a significant increase in momentum and impact.

The tag clouds below visually represent the many Drupal community members who in the past 12 months have contributed to the AI Initiative (sized according to number of fixed issues worked on). Includes code and non code contributions. 

The following organizations have also contributed to the Drupal AI Initiative in the past year.

Marketing Drupal AI

From small beginnings with Paul Johnson and Frederik Wouters taking on marketing, we now have a cross disciplinary high performing team with 10 leads across areas of specialization.

Focussing on introducing Drupal to new audiences the emphasis has been on webinars, participating in external events and organising major new customer facing events of our own. These include Drupal AI Summit Paris and New York City (14th May 2026), The AI Summit London (10-11 June 2026) and the latest Enterprise AI Summit Rotterdam (28 September 2026).

Our work has included facilitating Southwark Council, London, winning Digital Leaders AI Impact Award 2026, producing video case studies and highlighting major new AI features announced during the DriesNote with social video content. All these activities have substantially raised Drupal’s profile to a wider audience.

Building toward Rotterdam

The next major milestone is already taking shape.

In Rotterdam, the initiative will launch an exclusive Drupal Enterprise AI event, available only to Drupal AI Initiative partners. The event will bring together European decision-makers aboard the SS Rotterdam for peer networking, customer case studies, and strategic conversations about building AI-powered content management solutions with Drupal.

Participation in this event is limited to partners who join the Drupal AI Initiative by June 30.

That creates a powerful moment for companies that want to be part of Drupal’s AI future. The initiative is scaling, the roadmap is active, the team is growing, and the opportunity to help shape what comes next is open now.

A strong foundation for what comes next

The Drupal AI Initiative is in a strong position.

With $380,000 in cash and $1.5 million in in-kind contributions, more than 50 contributors from partners, the initiative has the resources and commitment needed to continue scaling. The plan is to onboard an additional 12 partners by Rotterdam, further strengthening the team and accelerating delivery.

The message is clear: You counted on Drupal AI, and we delivered. Now we want to create more efficiency and scale.

That is what this next phase is about. More delivery. More visibility. More impact.

Thank you to the people who made this possible

This milestone belongs to many people.

It belongs to everyone who joined those early conversations in Leuven.

It belongs to Frederik Wouters, who brought the right people together at the right moment and helped create the spark that started it all.

It belongs to the five companies that kickstarted the initiative: Dropsolid, Acquia, 1xINTERNET, FreelyGive, and Salsa Digital.

It belongs to every partner, contributor, sponsor, strategist, developer, product thinker, marketer, and community member who has helped move this initiative forward.

And it belongs to the wider Drupal community, whose openness and willingness to collaborate make initiatives like this possible.

You can still join

The Drupal AI Initiative is growing, and companies can still become part of it.

If your organization believes in the future of Drupal, if you want to help shape responsible AI in open source, or if you want to be part of the group building the next generation of AI-powered content management, now is the time to join.

Become part of the 34 makers already helping to build Drupal’s AI future.

To join the Drupal AI Initiative as an organization and become a partner, contact Dominique at dominique@dropsolid.com.

From Leuven to Athens, this has been an incredible first year.

And the best part? We are only just getting started!
 

Original article posted by Christoph Breidert on 1xINTERNET website

Over a decade ago, I co-founded 1xINTERNET on the conviction that Drupal was the best platform for ambitious web applications. That bet paid off. But recently, as AI began disrupting our industry, I found myself facing an unfamiliar feeling: uncertainty. For the first time in my career, the path forward wasn't entirely clear.

If you are a decision-maker navigating this shift, you likely feel the same way. We are all trying to figure out how to leverage AI's huge potential without compromising enterprise security, compliance, or content quality.

The good news is that while the broader AI landscape remains turbulent, the direction for content management systems is becoming clear.

- Christoph Breidert

Christoph Breidert facilitating a Drupal AI workshop at DrupalCon Chicago 2026.

When the Drupal AI Initiative was founded in June 2025 by 1xINTERNET, Acquia, DropSolid, FreelyGive, and Salsa Digital, our mission was to chart that exact path. Today, alongside Niels Aers, my role is to manage the AI product direction so that organizations can confidently bring AI into production.

Since the founding, over 30 leading companies have joined the initiative. But a defining moment happened recently at DrupalCon Chicago 2026. During his keynote - the "Driesnote" - Drupal founder Dries Buytaert bluntly asked the community regarding the AI shift: Are you in or are you out?

The undeniable energy from the community and the rapidly intensifying momentum proved one thing: Drupal is all in on AI.

But what does "all in" actually mean? We aren't just talking about adding superficial features like chatbots or simple text generators. We have built a powerful agentic infrastructure natively into Drupal. This provides us with a robust foundation, allowing organizations to build complex AI applications and deploy autonomous agents capable of executing multi-step workflows on their behalf.

What an Agentic CMS actually requires

Let’s be clear: Agentic AI delivers incredible velocity, and every organization from SMEs to global enterprises needs that speed. But deploying autonomous agents without control is a liability. You need AI infrastructure that accelerates your workflows while ensuring that this speed doesn't destroy your content quality or violate your compliance rules.

This requires a robust governance foundation to run the infrastructure safely. The Drupal AI Initiative has spent the past months building exactly that. These are the final pieces we have built to complete the production-ready foundation:

• AI Guardrails: Configurable rules that intercept both outgoing requests and incoming AI responses. Whether it's preventing the exposure of personal data (PII), ensuring prompt safety, or mitigating legal liability, guardrails keep the AI agents within defined boundaries.
• AI Observability: Complete transparency into what your AI agents are doing. Every prompt, token usage metric, and model response is logged, providing a clear audit trail for compliance and cost optimization.
• Context Control Center: AI models are useless without context. This system acts as a router, intelligently feeding the right organizational data (and only the right data) to the LLM based on the user's specific task.

Introducing AI Content Reviews

Let’s separate the hype from reality: The core foundation of Drupal AI is production-ready today. With a secure governance infrastructure now in place, we are shifting from building the engine to delivering the applications. We are shipping out-of-the-box features so organizations can immediately benefit without building complex workflows from scratch.

The first major capability rolling out is AI Content Reviews. This is not a future roadmap concept, it is a real, tangible feature designed to close the quality gap for large websites by acting as a continuous, background quality assurance partner.

It provides scalable, AI-assisted content governance that integrates naturally into how editors already work. The system evaluates content against your organization's specific rules, such as brand voice, legal compliance, SEO, and accessibility. It flags issues, explains them in plain language, and proposes concrete fixes. Crucially, human oversight remains the starting point: an editor simply reviews the flagged issues and can apply the suggested fixes with a single click.

AI Review Management Overview

Upcoming features

AI Content Reviews is just the first application of our agentic infrastructure. Following close behind is AI-powered semantic search with synthesized summaries. This allows visitors to find what they need through meaning rather than keywords, enabling the site to surface direct answers instead of just a list of results. 

We are also actively packaging AI assistants embedded natively across editorial workflows, site-building, and end-user interfaces. These capabilities have been thoroughly explored and validated in our innovation workstream and are now being readied for production use.

Want to see the full picture of what we are building? You can explore the complete Drupal AI Roadmap to see exactly where the initiative is heading next.

Overview Drupal AI Roadmap 2026.

Drupal’s architectural advantage

Why build this directly into Drupal instead of relying on external AI services or other CMS platforms? It comes down to a fundamental technological advantage. Many modern CMS platforms, especially closed SaaS products and pure headless systems, force you to rely on disconnected external API wrappers to communicate with AI. This architectural limitation means your developers have to manually rebuild your existing user permissions, workflows, and access rules in a separate middleware layer just to keep the AI secure.

Drupal AI has a distinct head start because of its deep internal architecture:

• Co-location with the Content Graph: AI models are only as good as the context they can access. By embedding AI orchestration directly within Drupal, the AI has native, zero-latency access to your entire structured content graph. There is no integration friction.
• Native Permissions & Access Control: Because Drupal's entity system and field-level access controls are so deeply integrated, the AI operates entirely within your existing permissions. It cannot expose, analyze, or modify content the user shouldn't see.
• Provider-Agnostic Abstraction: Similar to what makes frameworks like LangChain powerful, Drupal AI abstracts the LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, local models, etc.). But unlike external middle-tiers, Drupal enforces strict schema typing before data ever hits your database, ensuring structural integrity.
• An Unmatched Ecosystem for AI Agents: Autonomous agents need tools to interact with the outside world. Because Drupal already possesses a massive, deeply established ecosystem of enterprise integrations, your AI agents can directly interact with your CRMs, ERPs, and marketing platforms. You don’t have to build custom API connectors for your AI to take action across your broader tech stack.

Moving forward

The uncertainty of the AI era remains, no one knows exactly what the landscape will look like in three years. I'm being honest about that. But what I do know is that the architecture we are building is solid, the foundation is ready, the community driving it is fully committed and has the resources.

If you are evaluating whether Drupal is the right foundation for AI-powered content management, you don't have to figure that out alone. The Drupal AI Partners network brings together specialized agencies with deep experience deploying exactly these capabilities. If you are ready to move from evaluation to implementation, that is the right place to start.

We are all building in conditions none of us have navigated before.
The difference is what we are building on.

Original article posted by Christoph Breidert on 1xINTERNET website

Over a decade ago, I co-founded 1xINTERNET on the conviction that Drupal was the best platform for ambitious web applications. That bet paid off. But recently, as AI began disrupting our industry, I found myself facing an unfamiliar feeling: uncertainty. For the first time in my career, the path forward wasn't entirely clear.

If you are a decision-maker navigating this shift, you likely feel the same way. We are all trying to figure out how to leverage AI's huge potential without compromising enterprise security, compliance, or content quality.

The good news is that while the broader AI landscape remains turbulent, the direction for content management systems is becoming clear.

Christoph Breidert

Christoph Breidert facilitating a Drupal AI workshop at DrupalCon Chicago 2026.

When the Drupal AI Initiative was founded in June 2025 by 1xINTERNET, Acquia, DropSolid, FreelyGive, and Salsa Digital, our mission was to chart that exact path. Today, alongside Niels Aers, my role is to manage the AI product direction so that organizations can confidently bring AI into production.

Since the founding, over 30 leading companies have joined the initiative. But a defining moment happened recently at DrupalCon Chicago 2026. During his keynote - the "Driesnote" - Drupal founder Dries Buytaert bluntly asked the community regarding the AI shift: Are you in or are you out?

The undeniable energy from the community and the rapidly intensifying momentum proved one thing: Drupal is all in on AI.

But what does "all in" actually mean? We aren't just talking about adding superficial features like chatbots or simple text generators. We have built a powerful agentic infrastructure natively into Drupal. This provides us with a robust foundation, allowing organizations to build complex AI applications and deploy autonomous agents capable of executing multi-step workflows on their behalf.

What an Agentic CMS actually requires

Let’s be clear: Agentic AI delivers incredible velocity, and every organization from SMEs to global enterprises needs that speed. But deploying autonomous agents without control is a liability. You need AI infrastructure that accelerates your workflows while ensuring that this speed doesn't destroy your content quality or violate your compliance rules.

This requires a robust governance foundation to run the infrastructure safely. The Drupal AI Initiative has spent the past months building exactly that. These are the final pieces we have built to complete the production-ready foundation:

• AI Guardrails: Configurable rules that intercept both outgoing requests and incoming AI responses. Whether it's preventing the exposure of personal data (PII), ensuring prompt safety, or mitigating legal liability, guardrails keep the AI agents within defined boundaries.
• AI Observability: Complete transparency into what your AI agents are doing. Every prompt, token usage metric, and model response is logged, providing a clear audit trail for compliance and cost optimization.
• Context Control Center: AI models are useless without context. This system acts as a router, intelligently feeding the right organizational data (and only the right data) to the LLM based on the user's specific task.

Introducing AI Content Reviews

Let’s separate the hype from reality: The core foundation of Drupal AI is production-ready today. With a secure governance infrastructure now in place, we are shifting from building the engine to delivering the applications. We are shipping out-of-the-box features so organizations can immediately benefit without building complex workflows from scratch.

The first major capability rolling out is AI Content Reviews. This is not a future roadmap concept, it is a real, tangible feature designed to close the quality gap for large websites by acting as a continuous, background quality assurance partner.

It provides scalable, AI-assisted content governance that integrates naturally into how editors already work. The system evaluates content against your organization's specific rules, such as brand voice, legal compliance, SEO, and accessibility. It flags issues, explains them in plain language, and proposes concrete fixes. Crucially, human oversight remains the starting point: an editor simply reviews the flagged issues and can apply the suggested fixes with a single click.

AI Review Management Overview

Upcoming features

AI Content Reviews is just the first application of our agentic infrastructure. Following close behind is AI-powered semantic search with synthesized summaries. This allows visitors to find what they need through meaning rather than keywords, enabling the site to surface direct answers instead of just a list of results. 

We are also actively packaging AI assistants embedded natively across editorial workflows, site-building, and end-user interfaces. These capabilities have been thoroughly explored and validated in our innovation workstream and are now being readied for production use.

Want to see the full picture of what we are building? You can explore the complete Drupal AI Roadmap to see exactly where the initiative is heading next.

Overview Drupal AI Roadmap 2026.

Drupal’s architectural advantage

Why build this directly into Drupal instead of relying on external AI services or other CMS platforms? It comes down to a fundamental technological advantage. Many modern CMS platforms, especially closed SaaS products and pure headless systems, force you to rely on disconnected external API wrappers to communicate with AI. This architectural limitation means your developers have to manually rebuild your existing user permissions, workflows, and access rules in a separate middleware layer just to keep the AI secure.

Drupal AI has a distinct head start because of its deep internal architecture:

• Co-location with the Content Graph: AI models are only as good as the context they can access. By embedding AI orchestration directly within Drupal, the AI has native, zero-latency access to your entire structured content graph. There is no integration friction.
• Native Permissions & Access Control: Because Drupal's entity system and field-level access controls are so deeply integrated, the AI operates entirely within your existing permissions. It cannot expose, analyze, or modify content the user shouldn't see.
• Provider-Agnostic Abstraction: Similar to what makes frameworks like LangChain powerful, Drupal AI abstracts the LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, local models, etc.). But unlike external middle-tiers, Drupal enforces strict schema typing before data ever hits your database, ensuring structural integrity.

An Unmatched Ecosystem for AI Agents: Autonomous agents need tools to interact with the outside world. Because Drupal already possesses a massive, deeply established ecosystem of enterprise integrations, your AI agents can directly interact with your CRMs, ERPs, and marketing platforms. You don’t have to build custom API connectors for your AI to take action across your broader tech stack.

Moving forward

The uncertainty of the AI era remains, no one knows exactly what the landscape will look like in three years. I'm being honest about that. But what I do know is that the architecture we are building is solid, the foundation is ready, the community driving it is fully committed and has the resources.

If you are evaluating whether Drupal is the right foundation for AI-powered content management, you don't have to figure that out alone. The Drupal AI Partners network brings together specialized agencies with deep experience deploying exactly these capabilities. If you are ready to move from evaluation to implementation, that is the right place to start.

We are all building in conditions none of us have navigated before.
The difference is what we are building on.

Drupal Is No Longer Just a CMS Decision. It’s an AI Infrastructure Decision.

Site templates are available through two distinct pathways, each serving different needs within the community.

The official Drupal.org Marketplace provides a curated collection of site templates that meet certain quality standards, and are built on top of Drupal CMS as a foundation.

Community templates offer an alternative pathway for innovation and experimentation without the constraints of the curation process, by publishing the template as a general project on Drupal.org.

Official Marketplace Site Templates

The Drupal.org Marketplace are built on top of Drupal CMS, and curated to provide new users with confidence that they're starting with a consistent, solid and professionally built foundation that follows established best practices.

Key characteristics

• Templates undergo a review processes

• Must follow Drupal CMS best practices for security, accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA), performance, and code quality

• In the beginning, focus is solely on growing Drupal CMS adoption; site templates accelerate adoption of Drupal CMS by providing context relevant demo content and Drupal Canvas-compatible theme

• Clear documentation, maintenance commitments, and user support expectations

• Currently open to Drupal Certified Partners (for organizations) and Ripplemakers (for individuals or very small companies). Apply to become a creator here.

Benefits

• Consistency for users who need reliable, production-ready starting points

• Quality assurance through professional review processes

• Support and maintenance commitments for long-term sustainability

• Revenue opportunities for professional template creators

• Sustainability for the Drupal Association through revenue sharing

Community Site Templates

Anyone interested in contributing a template can do so now, by publishing it as a general project on Drupal.org. All free site templates, including marketplace templates, are general projects for packaging and distribution purposes. Community site templates will be considered for inclusion in the Drupal.org Marketplace based on their compatibility with the outlined criteria.

Key characteristics

• Can be published without formal review or approval

• Not bound by the same standards as Marketplace templates

• Can be built using Drupal CMS or Drupal Core

• Available to all community members

• Can take risks and explore directions that might not fit Marketplace criteria

Benefits:

• Innovation by removing barriers to experimentation

• Diversity of approaches and implementations

• Learning opportunities for the community to explore what's possible

• Stepping stones that might eventually evolve into Marketplace templates

• Lower barriers to entry for community contribution

Site templates are available through two distinct pathways, each serving different needs within the community.

The official Drupal.org Marketplace provides a curated collection of site templates that meet certain quality standards, and are built on top of Drupal CMS as a foundation.

Community templates offer an alternative pathway for innovation and experimentation without the constraints of the curation process, by publishing the template as a general project on Drupal.org.

Official Marketplace Site Templates

The Drupal.org Marketplace are built on top of Drupal CMS, and curated to provide new users with confidence that they're starting with a consistent, solid and professionally built foundation that follows established best practices.

Key characteristics

• Templates undergo a review processes

• Must follow Drupal CMS best practices for security, accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA), performance, and code quality

• In the beginning, focus is solely on growing Drupal CMS adoption; site templates accelerate adoption of Drupal CMS by providing context relevant demo content and Drupal Canvas-compatible theme

• Clear documentation, maintenance commitments, and user support expectations

• Currently open to Drupal Certified Partners (for organizations) and Ripplemakers (for individuals or very small companies). Apply to become a creator here.

Benefits

• Consistency for users who need reliable, production-ready starting points

• Quality assurance through professional review processes

• Support and maintenance commitments for long-term sustainability

• Revenue opportunities for professional template creators

• Sustainability for the Drupal Association through revenue sharing

Community Site Templates

Anyone interested in contributing a template can do so now, by publishing it as a general project on Drupal.org. All free site templates, including marketplace templates, are general projects for packaging and distribution purposes. Community site templates will be considered for inclusion in the Drupal.org Marketplace based on their compatibility with the outlined criteria.

Key characteristics

• Can be published without formal review or approval

• Not bound by the same standards as Marketplace templates

• Can be built using Drupal CMS or Drupal Core

• Available to all community members

• Can take risks and explore directions that might not fit Marketplace criteria

Benefits:

• Innovation by removing barriers to experimentation

• Diversity of approaches and implementations

• Learning opportunities for the community to explore what's possible

• Stepping stones that might eventually evolve into Marketplace templates

• Lower barriers to entry for community contribution

Drupal 11.3 comes with support for completing entity suggestions whilst adding a link to CKEditor 5.

The suggestions aren't sufficiently sanitized and a malicious user could trigger a stored cross site scripting attack against another user.

Install the latest version:

• If you use Drupal 11.3.x, update to Drupal 11.3.7
• Drupal versions below 11.3 are not affected by this vulnerability

• cantina_security
• Dries Buytaert (dries)
• Shirsendu Mondal

• Lee Rowlands (larowlan) of the Drupal Security Team
• Drew Webber (mcdruid) of the Drupal Security Team
• Mingsong (mingsong), provisional member of the Drupal Security Team

• Damien McKenna (damienmckenna) of the Drupal Security Team
• Greg Knaddison (greggles) of the Drupal Security Team
• Lee Rowlands (larowlan) of the Drupal Security Team
• Juraj Nemec (poker10) of the Drupal Security Team
• Jess (xjm) of the Drupal Security Team

Drupal core contains a chain of methods that could be exploitable when an insecure deserialization vulnerability exists on the site. This so-called "gadget chain" presents no direct threat, but is a vector that can be used to achieve remote code execution or SQL injection if the application deserializes untrusted data due to another vulnerability.

This issue is not directly exploitable.

This issue is mitigated by the fact that in order for it to be exploitable, a separate vulnerability must be present to allow an attacker to pass unsafe input to unserialize(). There are no such known exploits in Drupal core.

Install the latest version:

• If you use Drupal 10.5.x, update to Drupal 10.5.9.
• If you use Drupal 10.6.x, update to Drupal 10.6.7.
• If you use Drupal 11.2.x, update to Drupal 11.2.11.
• If you use Drupal 11.3.x, update to Drupal 11.3.7.

Drupal 11.1.x, Drupal 11.0.x, Drupal 10.4.x, and below are end-of-life and do not receive security coverage. (Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 have both reached end-of-life.)

• Truong Le (hswww)
• menon
• t-chen

• Benji Fisher (benjifisher) of the Drupal Security Team
• cilefen (cilefen) of the Drupal Security Team
• Neil Drumm (drumm) of the Drupal Security Team
• Greg Knaddison (greggles) of the Drupal Security Team
• Lee Rowlands (larowlan) of the Drupal Security Team
• Dave Long (longwave) of the Drupal Security Team
• Drew Webber (mcdruid) of the Drupal Security Team
• Ra Mänd (ram4nd), provisional member of the Drupal Security Team
• Jess (xjm) of the Drupal Security Team

• Greg Knaddison (greggles) of the Drupal Security Team
• Lee Rowlands (larowlan) of the Drupal Security Team
• Dave Long (longwave) of the Drupal Security Team
• Drew Webber (mcdruid) of the Drupal Security Team
• Juraj Nemec (poker10) of the Drupal Security Team
• Jess (xjm) of the Drupal Security Team

Drupal core's jQuery integration for AJAX modal dialog boxes does not sufficiently sanitize certain options, which which can lead to a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability.

Install the latest version:

• If you use Drupal 10.5.x, update to Drupal 10.5.9.
• If you use Drupal 10.6.x, update to Drupal 10.6.7.
• If you use Drupal 11.2.x, update to Drupal 11.2.11.
• If you use Drupal 11.3.x, update to Drupal 11.3.7.

Drupal 11.1.x, Drupal 11.0.x, Drupal 10.4.x, and below are end-of-life and do not receive security coverage. (Drupal 8 and Drupal 9 have both reached end-of-life.)

• Murat Kekiç (murat_kekic)

• Anna Kalata (akalata) of the Drupal Security Team
• Benji Fisher (benjifisher) of the Drupal Security Team
• Neil Drumm (drumm) of the Drupal Security Team
• Lee Rowlands (larowlan) of the Drupal Security Team
• Michael Hess (mlhess) of the Drupal Security Team
• James Gilliland (neclimdul) of the Drupal Security Team
• Joseph Zhao (pandaski) of the Drupal Security Team
• Juraj Nemec (poker10) of the Drupal Security Team
• Ra Mänd (ram4nd), provisional member of the Drupal Security Team
• Jess (xjm) of the Drupal Security Team

• Greg Knaddison (greggles) of the Drupal Security Team
• Lee Rowlands (larowlan) of the Drupal Security Team
• Pierre Rudloff (prudloff) of the Drupal Security Team
• Jess (xjm) of the Drupal Security Team

DrupalCon Chicago 2026 brought together leading experts in digital experience development, open source innovation, and enterprise technology.

The event provided a unique opportunity to connect with decision-makers, technical leaders, and innovators shaping the future of digital experiences.  More than 1,300 tech leaders, CEOs, developers, marketing executives, agencies, and enterprise decision-makers gathered to help define the future of the Open Web.

​A Diverse and Multilingual Global Community

Participants from 26 separate countries brought with them an estimated 15+ languages, reflecting the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of the Drupal ecosystem.  The United States (82.4%), Canada (6%), India (2%), Germany (1.2%) and Costa Rica (1.1%) were topping the list in terms of attendee numbers, with Brazil (1%), Colombia (0.8%) and the United Kingdom (0.8%) close behind.

This global span not only highlights Drupal’s widespread adoption, but also underscores the strength of a community shaped by varied perspectives, experiences, and ideas from around the world. Next year we’d love to add more blue!​

​Event Attendance

A total of 1,316 participants attended in Chicago, an increase from 1,288 for Atlanta 2025.  Of these we saw 394 first-time attendees, marking a 10.67% increase from those new to the event in 2025.  

539 of 1,316 also chose to extend their learning at the Summits & Trainings, with the AI Summit seeing the largest turnout in its first year, with 104 attendees joining to learn about the latest insights connected to Drupal AI.

Welcoming the Next Generation: Drupal in a Day

Outside of the main conference, and following the successful Drupal in a Day organized ahead of DrupalCon Vienna by Hilmar Kári Hallbjörnsson, DrupalCon Chicago saw the North America inaugural program take place alongside the contribution day. 

The training session, organized and staffed by ten volunteers, welcomed 55 learners of high school and college age to interact with Drupal CMS for the first time, helping to expand the reach of the community to new users of all ages. We thank the mentors and supporters who made this event a welcoming place for students, and particularly thank all the individual donors who made this happen, as well as Acquia for sponsoring, and Martin Anderson-Clutz and Jordan Thompson for instructing.

Grassroots to Global 

Building on the momentum of 2025, the local community ticket-sharing initiative (1 complimentary ticket for every 5th sold through participating organizations) resulted in an increase of 77.5% of ticket purchases which were affiliated with a local group at registration.  This initiative continued to grow in both reach and impact, what began as a strong show of grassroots participation has evolved into a more connected and collaborative global network of local camps and meetups celebrating together at DrupalCon. 

Participation has expanded beyond the initial groups, with 61 communities engaging through shared resources, cross-promotion, and increased visibility at the 2026 conference. This growth reflects not just higher numbers, but a deeper alignment across the community, where local leaders feel empowered, recognized, and increasingly integrated into the broader Drupal ecosystem.​

A Community Spanning All Skill Levels

DrupalCon Chicago 2026 showcased a well-balanced and highly skilled community, with attendees representing every stage of the Drupal journey. Experienced professionals made up the majority, including 348 advanced practitioners (32%) and 301 self-identified Drupal experts (27.7%), creating a strong foundation for in-depth technical exchange and innovation.

Intermediate attendees accounted for 297 participants (27.3%), playing a key role in connecting emerging talent with seasoned leaders. At the same time, the event remained welcoming to newcomers, with 117 beginners (10.8%) and 25 individuals completely new to Drupal (2.3%) joining the community.​

​

Special Luncheons 

The Drupal Association formerly required sponsors, who provided programming support for community interest luncheons. These were folded into general programming this year, and we’d like to acknowledge that not all programs had an assigned, designated host. In the next year, our focus is on strengthening local, regional, topical, and community interest groups, so please reach out to us on how to get connected.

See You in Orlando

DrupalCon Orlando will see vision meet execution. Whether you're architecting enterprise platforms, launching your next big project, or scaling what you've already built in Drupal, this is the event that meets you where you are and pushes you further. 

Save the date!

DrupalCon Chicago 2026 brought together leading experts in digital experience development, open source innovation, and enterprise technology.

The event provided a unique opportunity to connect with decision-makers, technical leaders, and innovators shaping the future of digital experiences.  More than 1,300 tech leaders, CEOs, developers, marketing executives, agencies, and enterprise decision-makers gathered to help define the future of the Open Web.

Image: Group photo in Chicago (Photo by Curt Rochon, CC BY-NC 4.0)

​A Diverse and Multilingual Global Community

Participants from 26 separate countries brought with them an estimated 15+ languages, reflecting the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of the Drupal ecosystem.  The United States (82.4%), Canada (6%), India (2%), Germany (1.2%) and Costa Rica (1.1%) were topping the list in terms of attendee numbers, with Brazil (1%), Colombia (0.8%) and the United Kingdom (0.8%) close behind.

This global span not only highlights Drupal’s widespread adoption, but also underscores the strength of a community shaped by varied perspectives, experiences, and ideas from around the world. Next year we’d love to add more blue!​

​Event Attendance

A total of 1,316 participants attended in Chicago, an increase from 1,288 for Atlanta 2025.  Of these we saw 394 first-time attendees, marking a 10.67% increase from those new to the event in 2025.  

539 of 1,316 also chose to extend their learning at the Summits & Trainings, with the AI Summit seeing the largest turnout in its first year, with 104 attendees joining to learn about the latest insights connected to Drupal AI.

Welcoming the Next Generation: Drupal in a Day

Outside of the main conference, and following the successful Drupal in a Day organized ahead of DrupalCon Vienna by Hilmar Kári Hallbjörnsson, DrupalCon Chicago saw the North America inaugural program take place alongside the contribution day. 

The training session, organized and staffed by ten volunteers, welcomed 55 learners of high school and college age to interact with Drupal CMS for the first time, helping to expand the reach of the community to new users of all ages. We thank the mentors and supporters who made this event a welcoming place for students, and particularly thank all the individual donors who made this happen, as well as Acquia for sponsoring, and Martin Anderson-Clutz and Jordan Thompson for instructing.

Image: Drupal in a day in Chicago (Photo by Paul Johnson, CC BY-NC 4.0)

Grassroots to Global 

Building on the momentum of 2025, the local community ticket-sharing initiative (1 complimentary ticket for every 5th sold through participating organizations) resulted in an increase of 77.5% of ticket purchases which were affiliated with a local group at registration.  This initiative continued to grow in both reach and impact, what began as a strong show of grassroots participation has evolved into a more connected and collaborative global network of local camps and meetups celebrating together at DrupalCon. 

Participation has expanded beyond the initial groups, with 61 communities engaging through shared resources, cross-promotion, and increased visibility at the 2026 conference. This growth reflects not just higher numbers, but a deeper alignment across the community, where local leaders feel empowered, recognized, and increasingly integrated into the broader Drupal ecosystem.​

A Community Spanning All Skill Levels

DrupalCon Chicago 2026 showcased a well-balanced and highly skilled community, with attendees representing every stage of the Drupal journey. Experienced professionals made up the majority, including 348 advanced practitioners (32%) and 301 self-identified Drupal experts (27.7%), creating a strong foundation for in-depth technical exchange and innovation.

Intermediate attendees accounted for 297 participants (27.3%), playing a key role in connecting emerging talent with seasoned leaders. At the same time, the event remained welcoming to newcomers, with 117 beginners (10.8%) and 25 individuals completely new to Drupal (2.3%) joining the community.​

​

Special Luncheons 

The Drupal Association formerly required sponsors, who provided programming support for community interest luncheons. These were folded into general programming this year, and we’d like to acknowledge that not all programs had an assigned, designated host. In the next year, our focus is on strengthening local, regional, topical, and community interest groups, so please reach out to us on how to get connected.

See You in Orlando

DrupalCon Orlando will see vision meet execution. Whether you're architecting enterprise platforms, launching your next big project, or scaling what you've already built in Drupal, this is the event that meets you where you are and pushes you further. 

Save the date!

As DrupalCon continues to evolve, so does our responsibility to understand and reduce the impact of the events we create.

Great digital experiences don’t exist in isolation. They are shaped not only by the technology we build and the communities we nurture, but also by the environmental footprint we leave behind.

At DrupalCon Vienna 2025, we took an important step forward by measuring the event’s carbon footprint in detail, with measurement conducted by TerraVerde Sustainability, and the results tell a meaningful story.

Why measuring impact matters

Sustainability is not a one-time achievement. It is an ongoing process of learning, improving, and making better decisions over time.

The 2025 Event Carbon Measurement Report provides a comprehensive view of DrupalCon’s environmental impact, helping us move from assumptions to data-driven action.

The total carbon footprint of the event was 512.8 tCO₂e, down significantly from 1,574.57 tCO₂e in 2024.

This progress reflects not only better planning, but also more intentional decisions, particularly in location and venue selection, where more efficient energy use and improved waste management played a key role.

What we learned from DrupalCon Vienna 2025

One of the most important insights is clear: Travel remains the dominant source of emissions.

94–95% of emissions came from delegate travel, mostly driven by flights.

However, while travel still represents the largest share, overall travel emissions were significantly lower than in 2024, supported in part by Vienna’s central location and strong rail connectivity.

The remaining emissions are distributed across several categories. Excluding travel, the total footprint was 26.97 tCO₂e, with heating accounting for 48% of emissions, while materials, food & beverage, and accommodation were other large contributors.

Across the event, we also saw:

• Energy consumption significantly decreased compared to previous years
• Waste was reduced through improved recycling and diversion strategies

These insights help us move from general intentions to targeted action.

What sustainability looks like at DrupalCon

Sustainability at DrupalCon is built through intentional choices across the entire event experience:

• Catering – Plant-forward meals, locally sourced ingredients, no disposables, and food donation
• Wellbeing – Quiet spaces, wellness activities, and opportunities to recharge
• Climate action – Energy-efficient venues, low-emission travel, and carbon reduction strategies
• Community – Inclusive programs, scholarships, and initiatives that support diverse participation
• Waste reduction – Minimal printing, refill stations, and reduced single-use materials
• Partnerships – Working with sponsors and suppliers to align on sustainability goals

A shared responsibility

Drupal has always been more than just technology. It is a global community built on collaboration, openness, and shared values. Sustainability is a natural extension of those values.

By sharing these insights openly, we invite the Drupal community to be part of the solution.

Whether you are:

• Choosing more sustainable travel options
• Stay in green-certified hotels
• Being mindful of materials and waste
• Supporting more responsible event practices
• Providing more detailed travel information during registration to help improve measurement accuracy

Your decisions matter.

Together, we can continue building DrupalCons that are not only impactful and inspiring, but also responsible and sustainable.

We're excited to announce updates to the Drupal CMS leadership team, with the addition of Bálint Kléri as our new Frontend Lead.

Bálint Kléri named Drupal CMS Frontend Lead

Bálint Kléri has been named Frontend Lead, a new leadership role created to oversee the frontend architecture for Drupal CMS, Mercury and Mercury-based themes. Bálint is a full-time contributor to Drupal Canvas, leading the development of Code Components for Acquia and a key contributor to Mercury, the Drupal CMS design system. 

During development of Mercury, Bálint stepped in to guide the Tailwind CSS implementation and advocate for the use of best practices. We are grateful for his contributions already, and are excited to have him formally join the team. The addition of this frontend role is critical as we refine the Drupal CMS design system, providing users with a modern and adaptable foundation for Drupal sites and site templates.

Pamela Barone promoted to Product Lead

Pamela Barone is now Drupal CMS Product Lead, overseeing product direction, roadmap, prioritization, and delivery. Serving as Product Owner previously, this shift recognizes the product management responsibilities that Pamela has taken on during the evolution of Drupal CMS.

She will continue to work closely with me as I lead the Drupal CMS initiative. I’ll continue to set direction, align teams, and ensure we have the support and momentum to achieve our goals.

We appreciate the ongoing support from Technocrat support in giving Pamela the time to contribute to Drupal CMS.

Tim Plunkett is stepping down as Technical Lead

Tim Plunkett is transitioning out of his role as Drupal CMS Technical Lead to dedicate his full focus to the development of Drupal Canvas. We thank Tim for his leadership and his employer Acquia for all of his contributions.

Adam Hoenich, Lead Architect for Drupal CMS, has been ably overseeing all things technical in the meantime and he will remain in that role. Adam's contribution to Drupal CMS is generously supported by Acquia.

Looking ahead

During DrupalCon Chicago, our leadership team met to discuss the future of Drupal CMS. The first question we asked was 'Do we still think this initiative is important for Drupal's future?' We think it is. We're proud of what we have delivered so far in version 2, with Canvas enablement and site templates as the highlights, but we know there is a lot more to do to meet our objective: To enable marketing teams to launch fully-branded, professional websites in hours, not weeks.

The leadership team is currently working to define the product roadmap for the next 6-12 months, with a strategic focus on launching sites faster with Drupal. We'd love to see new site templates in the marketplace and want to promote easier pathways from installation to going live with a range of hosting options. Other areas we are looking to pursue are: onboarding, better AI tooling, multilingual support for Canvas and site templates, and better support for common third-party integrations.

We're excited to announce updates to the Drupal CMS leadership team, with the addition of Bálint Kléri as our new Frontend Lead.

Bálint Kléri named Drupal CMS Frontend Lead

Bálint Kléri has been named Frontend Lead, a new leadership role created to oversee the frontend architecture for Drupal CMS, Mercury and Mercury-based themes. Bálint is a full-time contributor to Drupal Canvas, leading the development of Code Components for Acquia and a key contributor to Mercury, the Drupal CMS design system. 

During development of Mercury, Bálint stepped in to guide the Tailwind CSS implementation and advocate for the use of best practices. We are grateful for his contributions already, and are excited to have him formally join the team. The addition of this frontend role is critical as we refine the Drupal CMS design system, providing users with a modern and adaptable foundation for Drupal sites and site templates.

Pamela Barone promoted to Product Lead

Pamela Barone is now Drupal CMS Product Lead, overseeing product direction, roadmap, prioritization, and delivery. Serving as Product Owner previously, this shift recognizes the product management responsibilities that Pamela has taken on during the evolution of Drupal CMS.

She will continue to work closely with me as I lead the Drupal CMS initiative. I’ll continue to set direction, align teams, and ensure we have the support and momentum to achieve our goals.

We appreciate the ongoing support from Technocrat support in giving Pamela the time to contribute to Drupal CMS.

Tim Plunkett is stepping down as Technical Lead

Tim Plunkett is transitioning out of his role as Drupal CMS Technical Lead to dedicate his full focus to the development of Drupal Canvas. We thank Tim for his leadership and his employer Acquia for all of his contributions.

Adam Hoenich, Lead Architect for Drupal CMS, has been ably overseeing all things technical in the meantime and he will remain in that role. Adam's contribution to Drupal CMS is generously supported by Acquia.

Looking ahead

During DrupalCon Chicago, our leadership team met to discuss the future of Drupal CMS. The first question we asked was 'Do we still think this initiative is important for Drupal's future?' We think it is. We're proud of what we have delivered so far in version 2, with Canvas enablement and site templates as the highlights, but we know there is a lot more to do to meet our objective: To enable marketing teams to launch fully-branded, professional websites in hours, not weeks.

The leadership team is currently working to define the product roadmap for the next 6-12 months, with a strategic focus on launching sites faster with Drupal. We'd love to see new site templates in the marketplace and want to promote easier pathways from installation to going live with a range of hosting options. Other areas we are looking to pursue are: onboarding, better AI tooling, multilingual support for Canvas and site templates, and better support for common third-party integrations.

We're excited to announce updates to the Drupal CMS leadership team, with the addition of Bálint Kléri as our new Frontend Lead.

Bálint Kléri named Drupal CMS Frontend Lead

Bálint Kléri has been named Frontend Lead, a new leadership role created to oversee the frontend architecture for Drupal CMS, Mercury and Mercury-based themes. Bálint is a full-time contributor to Drupal Canvas, leading the development of Code Components for Acquia and a key contributor to Mercury, the Drupal CMS design system. 

During development of Mercury, Bálint stepped in to guide the Tailwind CSS implementation and advocate for the use of best practices. We are grateful for his contributions already, and are excited to have him formally join the team. The addition of this frontend role is critical as we refine the Drupal CMS design system, providing users with a modern and adaptable foundation for Drupal sites and site templates.

Pamela Barone promoted to Product Lead

Pamela Barone is now Drupal CMS Product Lead, overseeing product direction, roadmap, prioritization, and delivery. Serving as Product Owner previously, this shift recognizes the product management responsibilities that Pamela has taken on during the evolution of Drupal CMS.

She will continue to work closely with me as I lead the Drupal CMS initiative. I’ll continue to set direction, align teams, and ensure we have the support and momentum to achieve our goals.

We appreciate the ongoing support from Technocrat support in giving Pamela the time to contribute to Drupal CMS.

Tim Plunkett is stepping down as Technical Lead

Tim Plunkett is transitioning out of his role as Drupal CMS Technical Lead to dedicate his full focus to the development of Drupal Canvas. We thank Tim for his leadership and his employer Acquia for all of his contributions.

Adam Hoenich, Lead Architect for Drupal CMS, has been ably overseeing all things technical in the meantime and he will remain in that role. Adam's contribution to Drupal CMS is generously supported by Acquia.

Looking ahead

During DrupalCon Chicago, our leadership team met to discuss the future of Drupal CMS. The first question we asked was 'Do we still think this initiative is important for Drupal's future?' We think it is. We're proud of what we have delivered so far in version 2, with Canvas enablement and site templates as the highlights, but we know there is a lot more to do to meet our objective: To enable marketing teams to launch fully-branded, professional websites in hours, not weeks.

The leadership team is currently working to define the product roadmap for the next 6-12 months, with a strategic focus on launching sites faster with Drupal. We'd love to see new site templates in the marketplace and want to promote easier pathways from installation to going live with a range of hosting options. Other areas we are looking to pursue are: onboarding, better AI tooling, multilingual support for Canvas and site templates, and better support for common third-party integrations.

We're excited to announce updates to the Drupal CMS leadership team, with the addition of Bálint Kléri as our new Frontend Lead.

Bálint Kléri named Drupal CMS Frontend Lead

Bálint Kléri has been named Frontend Lead, a new leadership role created to oversee the frontend architecture for Drupal CMS, Mercury and Mercury-based themes. Bálint is a full-time contributor to Drupal Canvas, leading the development of Code Components for Acquia and a key contributor to Mercury, the Drupal CMS design system. 

During development of Mercury, Bálint stepped in to guide the Tailwind CSS implementation and advocate for the use of best practices. We are grateful for his contributions already, and are excited to have him formally join the team. The addition of this frontend role is critical as we refine the Drupal CMS design system, providing users with a modern and adaptable foundation for Drupal sites and site templates.

Pamela Barone promoted to Product Lead

Pamela Barone is now Drupal CMS Product Lead, overseeing product direction, roadmap, prioritization, and delivery. Serving as Product Owner previously, this shift recognizes the product management responsibilities that Pamela has taken on during the evolution of Drupal CMS.

She will continue to work closely with me as I lead the Drupal CMS initiative. I’ll continue to set direction, align teams, and ensure we have the support and momentum to achieve our goals.

We appreciate the ongoing support from Technocrat support in giving Pamela the time to contribute to Drupal CMS.

Tim Plunkett is stepping down as Technical Lead

Tim Plunkett is transitioning out of his role as Drupal CMS Technical Lead to dedicate his full focus to the development of Drupal Canvas. We thank Tim for his leadership and his employer Acquia for all of his contributions.

Adam Hoenich, Lead Architect for Drupal CMS, has been ably overseeing all things technical in the meantime and he will remain in that role. Adam's contribution to Drupal CMS is generously supported by Acquia.

Looking ahead

During DrupalCon Chicago, our leadership team met to discuss the future of Drupal CMS. The first question we asked was 'Do we still think this initiative is important for Drupal's future?' We think it is. We're proud of what we have delivered so far in version 2, with Canvas enablement and site templates as the highlights, but we know there is a lot more to do to meet our objective: To enable marketing teams to launch fully-branded, professional websites in hours, not weeks.

The leadership team is currently working to define the product roadmap for the next 6-12 months, with a strategic focus on launching sites faster with Drupal. We'd love to see new site templates in the marketplace and want to promote easier pathways from installation to going live with a range of hosting options. Other areas we are looking to pursue are: onboarding, better AI tooling, multilingual support for Canvas and site templates, and better support for common third-party integrations.

Join us THURSDAY, April 16 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our regularly scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)

We don't have anything specific on the agenda this month, so we'll have plenty of time to discuss anything that's on our minds at the intersection of Drupal and nonprofits. Got something specific you want to talk about? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google document at https://nten.org/drupal/notes!

All nonprofit Drupal devs and users, regardless of experience level, are always welcome on this call.

This free call is sponsored by NTEN.org and open to everyone.

Information on joining the meeting can be found in our collaborative Google document.

Join us THURSDAY, April 16 at 1pm ET / 10am PT, for our regularly scheduled call to chat about all things Drupal and nonprofits. (Convert to your local time zone.)

We don't have anything specific on the agenda this month, so we'll have plenty of time to discuss anything that's on our minds at the intersection of Drupal and nonprofits. Got something specific you want to talk about? Feel free to share ahead of time in our collaborative Google document at https://nten.org/drupal/notes!

All nonprofit Drupal devs and users, regardless of experience level, are always welcome on this call.

This free call is sponsored by NTEN.org and open to everyone.

Information on joining the meeting can be found in our collaborative Google document.

​AI coding tools have evolved fast — from inline suggestions to full-blown agents that can scaffold modules, write tests, and refactor code across files. But what does that actually mean for your day-to-day work, and where should a seasoned developer start?

Our next session on Tuesday, April 14th at 11:30am Pacific (what is that in my timezone?) is led by Scott Falconer of the Drupal AI Initiative, breaks down the current landscape of AI-assisted coding into clear, practical tiers: inline completions (think autocomplete on steroids), chat-in-your-IDE copilot workflows, and the newer "agentic" coding loops where AI plans and executes multi-step tasks with your oversight. We'll look at what each style is good at, where it falls down, and — critically — how much control you keep at each level.

​You'll come away understanding what tools like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, and others actually do under the hood, how to evaluate which approach fits your workflow, and how to move up the ladder at your own pace without feeling like you're handing the keys to a junior dev who doesn't know what <?php print 'hello world'; ?> does.

​No hype, no "AI will replace you" nonsense — just a clear-eyed look at what's useful now and how to adopt it without abandoning the engineering discipline that got you here.

➡️ Register here: https://luma.com/namxz1gf 

➡️ Session summary

​Coming out of DrupalCon Chicago 2026, we're starting the #ai-learners club, where we share tips and tricks and answer questions about how to use Drupal and AI together. Think of it kind of like Drupal Dojo, but for AI.

​For our inaugural meeting, the topic is: What's your Drupal + AI setup?

​Join us on Wednesday, April 8 at 9:30am Pacific (What is that in my timezone?) for a live "show and tell" of what folks who attend are using for things like: models, modules, skills, tools, agents, IDEs, workflows... whatever! Let's share what's working and what's not and try and help each other level up. :)

​Note: The session will be recorded and uploaded afterwards for those who can't make it live. But it's way more fun if you can! ;)

➡️ Register here: https://luma.com/8tzrlljr

➡️ Session summary

Drupal Café Lutsk and Drupal Global Contribution Weekend (DGCW) have become regular opportunities to strengthen the Drupal community in Lutsk, Ukraine. Organized by the DevBranch development team, they connect developers and grow an active community both locally and within the global Drupal ecosystem.

Is Drupal Café Lutsk the biggest systematic free Drupal meetup?

Drupal Café Lutsk became one of the largest events of this kind and one of the world’s leading Drupal meetups. It all started with the desire to promote this CMF to local programmers.

This idea took shape as free and offline meetups. Their format included two speakers giving sessions on technical Drupal topics in an informal setting. Recordings of the sessions were streamed on Facebook, but the main emphasis remained on live interaction among participants.

The first Café, held on February 18, 2016, attracted nearly 40 attendees. Such a strong start inspired the organizers to continue their mission of introducing more people to Drupal. Their creative peak was to put Drupal’s founder, Dries Buytaert’s, portrait on the logo. To everyone's sheer surprise, Dries himself replied to the email with a confirmation! As a result, the announcement of the next Café had the aforementioned logo.

Drupal Café Lutsk (18.02.2016)

One of the key challenges in organizing the event was finding the right venue. Since the primary goal was to create informal communication in a comfort zone with no recruitment or headhunting, the choice fell on open-space venues to rent.

Drupal Café Lutsk (05.08.2021)

This, however, was only at the beginning. As the company grew, DevBranch built its own office in late 2021. One of its rooms was a conference hall, which became the permanent venue not only for Drupal Café Lutsk, but also for other similar events.

Drupal Café Lutsk (23.10.2025)

Now, Drupal Café Lutsk is held four times a year. To attract more attendees and broaden the audience, a third session (non-technical IT-related) was added. From that point on, the number of attendees steadily grew and eventually exceeded 100 per event. Thanks to this, has Drupal Café Lutsk become the largest free recurring Drupal meetup in the world?

The initiative also received support from software agencies like AnyforSoft and YozmaTech. Their contributions helped provide dinners/afterparties and photos.

Drupal Global Contribution Weekend (DGCW) in Lutsk - 100+ successfully closed issues every event annually!

Another important contribution to the community’s development is the Drupal Code Sprint, based on the Drupal Association initiative — the Drupal Global Contribution Weekend. The association’s goal was to convene Drupal developers worldwide annually to collaborate on core, modules, themes, and documentation.

Drupal Global Contribution Weekend in Lutsk (25.01.2020)

The DevBranch’s idea was to join this initiative by arranging a local event. Their partners and friends — Drupal companies from different parts of Ukraine — were invited to join the Drupal Code Sprint as sponsors, mentors, and participants. Organizers provide an office location and all the necessary equipment, along with overall event administration. Sponsors — AnyforSoft, ImageX, Lemberg Solutions, Five Jars, UniOne, Sigma Software, and Mint Innovations — cover direct expenses such as lunch, mentors’ presents, and participants’ souvenirs.

Following the tradition established by the Drupal Association, the day for Drupal Code Sprints was set for the last Saturday of January. Those interested in participating choose the role of developer or mentor, depending on their expertise and availability of drupal.org issues. At the end of an all-day marathon, both contributors and mentors receive pleasant bonuses: souvenirs and gifts.

Drupal Global Contribution Weekend in Lutsk (25.01.2025)

As a result, Code Sprints became an accessible way for Ukrainian developers to contribute to community issues as part of a broader global movement. Beginners can make their first open-source contributions under the guidance of more experienced developers, who, in turn, finally have the time to contribute themselves :)

The outcomes spoke for themselves: 100+ successfully closed issues every event annually!

Drupal Ukraine Community banner at Drupal events

With the start of the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, all those initiatives were put on hold. Many Ukrainians were stripped of the opportunity to attend global Drupal events in person. To highlight the impact of the war, DevBranch cooperated with AnyforSoft to create a banner with a simple message:

"Ukrainian Drupal Community: Absent from In-Person Events since 2022".

It has already traveled to DrupalCon Barcelona, DrupalCamp Ottawa, Drupal GovCon, DrupalCamp Finland+Baltics, DrupalCamp Ghent, DrupalCon Portland, Drupal Dev Days Belgium, Drupaljam, and DrupalSouth Melbourne, adding Ukrainian context to the global Drupal community.

Behind this journey stands the support of the community and those who helped make it happen. Props to all the event organizers and Lenny Moskalyk for her enormous assistance with logistics and for making sure the banners were in place!

If you are an event organizer and want to support Ukraine in such a way, just drop an email to merge@dev-branch.com! They can help from providing design assets, to printing a banner, and handling delivery to your venue.

Drupal Ukraine Community banner at Drupal events

Summary

When organizing all of these events, one of the key priorities was to create lively and in-person communication and urge a local IT community to grow. For this reason, all events were held on-site. Accordingly, with the onset of COVID-19 pandemic, the organizers deliberately suspended all such initiatives. Once regulations allowed gatherings in public spaces again, DevBranch brought back on-site events, taking care to provide attendees with masks and sanitizers.

However, this return to the in-person format took place shortly before the start of the full-scale russian invasion of Ukraine. And only thanks to the Defence Forces of Ukraine, it eventually became possible to organize on-site events again. No event now takes place without the company’s traditional fundraising for the needs of the Ukrainian military.

Drupal Global Contribution Weekend in Lutsk (25.01.2025)

Thus, despite all obstacles and the challenging conditions dictated by today’s Ukrainian realities, Drupal Café Lutsk meetups and DGCW code sprints continue to bring developers together, promoting this CMF in Ukraine, attracting new participants, and helping experienced specialists continue to grow.

Over the course of 10 years, a proud number of events have been organized: 

• 30 Drupal Café Lutsk meetups;
• 10 Сode Sprints;
• 2 Drupal TriviaNights (inspired by the same venues at DrupalCons, Thursday evenings);
• numerous Upwork Freelance huddles.

All the local events highlighted Lutsk town as the Drupal capital of Ukraine! 

You can see photos from every event here: https://devbranch.ua/events

One day, DevBranch was asked, ‘Are you a Drupal development team, or an events agency?’
The reply was ‘Yes :)’