Drupal CMS News Digest
developments tricks, articles and reviews from Drupal specialists
Webpro Company blog: Why does Drupal get slower over time?
Many Drupal sites are fast when launched, but become heavier over the years. The cause is usually not Drupal itself, but how the platform is maintained, extended and filled with content over time. Slowness rarely comes from one change A Drupal site does not usually become slow overnight. It is usually a gradual process: more content is added; more images and files are uploaded; new modules are installed; small custom features are built; analytics, marketing and chat scripts are added; cache or server configuration falls behind; old solutions remain in place next to new ones. Each individual change may seem small. Together, they can make the site slower, harder to manage and more expensive to develop further. Content growth has a bigger impact than expected A large organisation's Drupal…
https://webpro.company/blog/wh
mandclu: Alias Your Local DDEV Commands
Alias Your Local DDEV Commands
mandclu
Jul 2, 2026 - 1:19am Like a lot of other people in the Drupal community, I exclusively use DDEV for local development. I am regularly impressed by the breadth of features it offers out-of-the-box, and the add-on architecture means you can easily bring in additional capabilities as you need them. Recently, I even decided to vibe-code my own add-on to make it easy to run code validation checks and automated tests locally before pushing code. The working result has been transformative, allowing me to ship more code, with higher confidence, on more contrib projects. One lingering point of friction for me has been the need to remember to prefix common tutorial commands with ddev for them to work as expected. I've been thinking about aliasing drush to ddev drush for some time, and I was even on a call with someone More
https://www.mandclu.com/blog/a
Drupal blog: Drupal 11.4.0 is now available
The fourth feature release of Drupal 11 is another performance breakthrough. Using only a third of the database and cache lookups compared to Drupal 11.0 and 10.6 for the same requests. It also comes with 15-25% better compression of JS and CSS, much faster translation file handling, a new native command line interface, improved password hashing and a lot more.
New in Drupal 11.4
Biggest performance improvement of the decade (again!)
With Drupal 11.3, we announced that it was the biggest performance improvement of the decade. Drupal 11.4 is arguably the biggest performance improvement of the decade again!
Drupal 11.4 reduces database queries by half compared to 11.3 across a wide range of requests due to optimizations in how entity fields are loaded.
Now, on a completely cold cache, Drupal 11.4 will execute just over 1/3rd of the database and cache lookups compared to Drupal 11.0 or 10.6, representing hundreds of milliseconds saved.
As well as entity loading, entity listing queries have also been significantly improved via reducing the number of table joins, leading to fewer slow queries. This should particularly benefit sites using JSON:API.
To reduce the cost of rendering menus and improve render cache hit rates, menu blocks now have a configuration option to not generate CSS classes for ancestor menu links.
Applying recipes, such as setting up Drupal CMS is twice as fast...
https://www.drupal.org/blog/dr
Drupal AI Initiative: The UN Spent a Week Describing Drupal
Image Credit: Mike Gifford
I spent last week at the UN in New York for Open Source Week. The AI sessions were sharp, well-attended, and full of people who have been thinking seriously about where this is all going. Ministers, engineers, researchers, cybersecurity practitioners. And across four days of sessions, a picture kept assembling itself — not one anyone drew deliberately, but one that emerged from enough different people making enough adjacent points. By the end of the week I was fairly convinced that what the AI world is urgently trying to build, Drupal already is. Read on and let me make the case. The model is not the thing Brian Behlendorf said it plainly: people talk about AI as if it's the model. It isn't. The model is one layer. What matters is the harness. How you orchestrate models, constrain them, route information, log outputs, build verification in. That's where the work happens. That's where the risk lives and where we create value. Sara Hooker from Adaptation Labs made the same point from a different angle. We used to work in code and design. Interfaces were understood and boundaries were mostly clear. AI has moved us into unknown interfaces. The next step, she said, is dynamic, adaptable interfaces that allow humans to remain at the centre. Not interfaces that hand control to the model, but ones that keep the human in the loop while the...
https://www.drupal.org/about/a
mark.ie: My LocalGov Drupal contributions for June 2026
My LocalGov Drupal contributions for June 2026 At last, I've started work on microsites demo content. markconroy
1st Jul 2026
https://mark.ie/blog/my-localg
LakeDrops Drupal Consulting, Development and Hosting: The ECA Guide Revolution: Documentation Meets AI
The ECA Guide Revolution: Documentation Meets AI Jürgen Haas
Wed 1 Jul 2026 - 12:00 ECA documentation stopped being only for humans. The ECA Guide at ecaguide.org is now machine-readable infrastructure - an MCP server at /mcp with three tools (search_docs, get_page, list_sections), an llms.txt structured index, llms-full.txt with about 151,000 words, and clean Markdown for any page by adding index.md to its URL. All 1,206 plugins are documented and auto-generated at /plugins/. An AI agent skill packages this: point an agent at the Guide, describe a workflow in plain English, and watch it read the token-syntax docs humans skip and build a working model with the right tokens on the first try. The numbers back it up. Over the last six months, humans made about 11,400 visits and 17,300 page views; machines through the MCP server made about 244,000 visits and 734,000 page reads. Around 21 times more visits and 42 times more reads from machines than humans (with honest caveats: machine traffic includes crawling, and an agent read is not a human learning). The pattern works for any complex Drupal system - Views, Layout Builder, Commerce could all do it. Documentation becomes infrastructure, and Drupal becomes AI-native rather than...
https://www.lakedrops.com/en/b
Drupal AI Initiative: Which AI Summit Is Right for You at DrupalCon Rotterdam?
Artificial intelligence is changing how we build, manage, and deliver digital experiences. But AI isn’t just a developer conversation. It’s also a conversation for architects, product owners, marketers, digital strategists, executives, and organisational leaders.
That’s why DrupalCon Rotterdam is introducing two dedicated AI summits on Monday, 28th September. Each has a different focus, but together they provide a complete picture of what AI means for the future of Drupal.
The AI Dev Summit
The AI Dev Summit is built for the people creating the next generation of Drupal experiences.
If you enjoy building, experimenting, and solving technical challenges, this summit is for you. Sessions focus on practical implementation, emerging AI capabilities, and the tools developers need to begin building AI-powered Drupal solutions today.
Topics include:
AI-assisted development
Drupal AI and Drupal CMS
Canvas and modern AI workflows
Building with AI frameworks and services
Real-world technical demonstrations
Best practices from experienced contributors
Whether you’re already working with AI or just beginning to explore what’s possible, the AI Dev Summit offers practical knowledge you can apply immediately.
The Enterprise AI Summit
Technology alone doesn’t create transformation. Organisations also need leadership, governance, strategy, and clear business objectives.
The Enterprise AI...
https://www.drupal.org/about/a
ImageX: Managing Colour in Drupal: Practical Tools for Modern Websites
Colour brings life and vibrancy to your Drupal website and shapes how people feel when they visit it. The right palette can make your site feel bold and dynamic, warm and cozy, or reserved and professional. Colours enhance user experience by clarifying your website’s hierarchy and making interactive elements easier to recognize. That being said, colours are an essential part of a compelling Drupal website design.
https://imagexmedia.com/blog/m
DevCollaborative: Meeting the Moment With Tiny Services
To better serve smaller organizations and those in a budget crunch, we’ve launched Tiny Services.
https://devcollaborative.com/b
Jacob Rockowitz: Vibing Drupal: New Kids on the Block
Anxiety about AIThe Drupal and broader software community are getting overly anxious about the new kids on the block… AI. I wanted to step back and explore this anxiety through the analogy of AI as the new kids on the block, or, more specifically, the new kids entering our software teams and community. It is important to view AI not as a single kid because AI consists of multiple LLMs and harnesses.Therefore, our immediate expectation when working with AI is that there is no single way to prepare for or interact with AI that always works across all AIs. The inconsistency and unpredictability of the current state of AI, and how it impacts our work, is making people anxious, which is leading them to want tools and processes to prepare to collaborate with AI. I'm writing this post because I think people's anxiety about AI is making them overprepare.Overpreparing for AIA large part of the AI narrative centers on the tooling you need to use AI. I feel that most of the AI tooling is overbuilt or overplanned. At the same time, harnesses like OpenCode provide essential tools and methodologies for an LLM to write code and perform tasks. Still, a harness is just a tool for AI, like the computer and software I am using to write this post.The tooling and planning I am concerned about involve AI-specific processes for managing and orchestrating AI agents. Many people in the software...
https://www.jrockowitz.com/blo
Dries Buytaert: The privilege of AI in Open Source
Back in 2019, I wrote that Open Source is not a meritocracy. Meritocracy says talent is the only thing that counts, but that is not true. To contribute, you also need time, a steady income, and a flexible schedule. Plenty of people lack one or more of these.
Some people can give their nights and weekends to learning a codebase, clearing the issue queue, or reviewing patches. Some are paid to do it on the clock. A lot of people can't do either. Their hours go to a second job, caring for family, or simply making it through the week.
That doesn't make these people less talented. It means they have less opportunity.
AI changes that math. A contributor might have the skill to fix a bug, but not the time to learn an unfamiliar codebase. AI can explain unfamiliar code and point them to where the fix belongs.
On paper, that should be great news for Open Source. In practice, AI will only help if access and skill become shared, not private advantages.
AI access is not equal. The most capable models and coding agents cost real money, and using them well takes real skill. I pay hundreds of dollars a month for these tools and have spent countless hours learning when to trust them, when to doubt them, and how to turn their output into useful work. Many contributors do not have that money or that time.
We learned once that "anyone can contribute" is not the same as "everyone...
https://dri.es/the-privilege-o
The privilege of AI in Open Source
Back in 2019, I wrote that Open Source is not a meritocracy. Meritocracy says talent is the only thing that counts, but that is not true. To contribute, you also need time, a steady income, and a flexible schedule. Plenty of people lack one or more of these.
Some people can give their nights and weekends to learning a codebase, clearing the issue queue, or reviewing patches. Some are paid to do it on the clock. A lot of people can't do either. Their hours go to a second job, caring for family, or simply making it through the week.
That doesn't make these people less talented. It means they have less opportunity.
AI changes the math. It can compress the time it takes to understand enough to act. A contributor might have the skill to fix a bug, but not the time to learn an unfamiliar codebase. AI can help them understand the codebase faster.
On paper, that should be great news for Open Source. In practice, AI will only help if access and skill become shared, not private advantages.
AI access is not equal. The most capable models and coding agents cost real money, and using them well takes real skill. I pay hundreds of dollars a month for these tools and have spent countless hours learning when to trust them, when to doubt them, and how to turn their output into useful work. Many contributors do not have that money or that time.
We learned once that "anyone can contribute...
https://dri.es/the-privilege-o
Specbee: Build and publish pages with Drupal Canvas AI without waiting on developers
Drupal Canvas AI gives content teams prompt-based speed, along with governance and brand control. Here is what it does and how to use it.
https://www.specbee.com/blogs/
Acquia.com - Drupal Blog: Pick Your Starting Point: A Complete Guide to the Drupal Site Templates Marketplace
More than a dozen Drupal site templates are available. Compare every marketplace option by sector, design system, and content architecture.
https://www.acquia.com/blog/pi
Droptica: From cost to asset: growing a Drupal support client into a development partner
Plenty of clients arrive with a system they see as a line item to keep cheap. The real job of an agency is to help them see what that same system could become - and why it is worth investing in.See how a Drupal development partner relationship grows from minimal support into strategic investment - five readiness signals, quick wins that prove value, the account growth curve, and a ~24% conversion lift on one real account.
https://www.droptica.com/blog/
Talking Drupal: Talking Drupal #559 - Marketing Drupal
Today we are talking about Marketing, AI, and Drupal with guest Paul Johnson. We'll also cover Curated Colors as our module of the week. For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/559 Topics Paul's Current Projects Enterprise AI Summit Details Marketing the AI Initiative Partnering on Event Booths Drupal's Outside Perception What's Working Now Growing the Marketing Team How to Contribute Outside In Storytelling Case Study Examples AI Initiative Impact Roadmap and Launch Planning Finding New Adopters Where Pros Research Conference Pitch Story Local Event Playbook Funnel and Webinars Industry Guides and Demos SEO and AI Search Why Agents Avoid Drupal High Leverage Contributions Measuring AI Mentions Vibe Coders to Governance Fixing Misconceptions Resources Drupal AI Initiative home page Slack #ai-initiative-marketing Enterprise AI Summit Rotterdam AI Dev Summit Rotterdam Drupal AI TV We've curated a selection of the best presentations, workshops and demonstrations freely available to provide a practical way to stay informed about the latest innovations in Drupal AI. Drupal AI Webinars playlist Demos Ryan Whitcombe 1xINTERNET S1xSignals free AIO GEO assessment All things open World cancer day Guests Paul Johnson - pdjohnson Hosts Nic Laflin - nLighteneddevelopment.com nicxvan John Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi Scott Falconer - managing-ai.com scott-falconer...
https://sacstudio.libsyn.com/t
