Drupal Technology Intelligence

What is Drupal?

Drupal is an open-source content management system (CMS) known for its flexibility, security, and enterprise-grade capabilities. Created by Dries Buytaert in 2001, Drupal powers complex websites requiring custom content architectures, advanced user permissions, and multilingual support.

Unlike simpler CMSs, Drupal excels at structured content and custom data modeling. Its taxonomy system, content types, and Views module enable sophisticated content relationships. Government agencies, universities, and enterprises choose Drupal for its security track record and extensibility.

Major Drupal sites include whitehouse.gov, The Economist, NASA, and University of Oxford. Drupal 10 uses Symfony components, Twig templates, and modern PHP practices. The platform supports headless/decoupled architectures via JSON:API and GraphQL.

Drupal Architecture

Content Types: Define custom entity structures. Fields for any data type. Bundles group field configurations. Flexible content modeling.

Taxonomy: Hierarchical categorization system. Vocabularies and terms. Content relationships. Faceted navigation.

Views: Query builder for content display. Filters, sorts, relationships. Export to blocks, pages, feeds. No coding required.

Modules: 50,000+ contributed modules. Hooks for extension. Symfony-based architecture. Composer dependency management.

Themes: Twig templating engine. Theme inheritance. Render arrays for output. Responsive base themes.

User Permissions: Granular role-based access. Content moderation workflows. Field-level permissions. Workspaces for staging.

Drupal Use Cases

Government: Federal and local government sites. Accessibility compliance. Security requirements. Public information portals.

Higher Education: University websites. Course catalogs. Research publications. Multi-department sites.

Enterprise: Corporate intranets. Multi-site management. Digital asset management. Complex workflows.

Publishing: News and media sites. Editorial workflows. Multi-author management. Scheduled publishing.

E-commerce: Drupal Commerce for stores. Complex product catalogs. B2B commerce. Subscription management.

Multilingual: 100+ language support. Content translation workflows. Right-to-left languages. Global organizations.

Drupal Development

Custom Module and Theming

<?php
// my_module.module - Hook implementations

use Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface;
use Drupal\Core\Form\FormStateInterface;

/**
 * Implements hook_entity_presave().
 */
function my_module_entity_presave(EntityInterface $entity) {
  if ($entity->getEntityTypeId() === 'node' && $entity->bundle() === 'article') {
    // Auto-generate summary if empty
    if ($entity->get('body')->isEmpty() === FALSE && $entity->get('body')->summary === '') {
      $body = $entity->get('body')->value;
      $entity->set('body', [
        'value' => $body,
        'summary' => substr(strip_tags($body), 0, 200) . '...',
        'format' => 'basic_html',
      ]);
    }
  }
}

/**
 * Implements hook_form_alter().
 */
function my_module_form_alter(&$form, FormStateInterface $form_state, $form_id) {
  if ($form_id === 'node_article_form') {
    $form['#validate'][] = 'my_module_validate_article';
  }
}

// Twig template example (node--article.html.twig)
/*
{% raw %}
<article{{ attributes.addClass('article') }}>
  <h2>{{ label }}</h2>
  {% if content.field_image %}
    <div class="article-image">{{ content.field_image }}</div>
  {% endif %}
  <div class="article-body">{{ content.body }}</div>
  {{ content|without('field_image', 'body') }}
</article>
{% endraw %}
*/

Drupal Benefits

Security: Dedicated security team. Regular security advisories. Government-trusted. Proactive vulnerability management.

Flexibility: Build any content structure. Limitless customization. Custom entities and fields. No assumptions about content.

Enterprise Ready: Scales to millions of pages. Multi-site from single codebase. Content staging workflows. Enterprise integrations.

Multilingual: Best-in-class translation. 100+ languages. RTL support. Translation management.

Accessibility: WCAG compliance focus. Semantic markup. Keyboard navigation. Screen reader support.

Community: Large contributor community. DrupalCon events. Extensive documentation. Long-term support.

API-First: JSON:API core. GraphQL module. Headless architectures. Content as service.