Drupal 11 has just been released. The new release is the result of a lot of hard work from the community with contributions from 1,858 individuals across 590 organisations. Sites running on the last Drupal 10 version, 10.3, can now upgrade to 11.0 and those starting on new projects can start working with Drupal 11 straight away.
Features
The release brings a number of new features which include:
Recipes allow for better plug and play of features for Drupal sites, making it easier to share and integrate functionality. The vision is for sites to be able to more easily integrate code and configuration to speed and improve the consistency of the development process.
Single Directory Components encapsulate the implementation of components in a standard way, allowing for more standard and compatible ways of shipping components.
PHP 8.3 is now a requirement , making Drupal faster.
Drupal 11 is designed to empower ambitious site builders to build exceptional websites and to accelerate Drupal's innovation,” says Dries Buytaert, Founder and Project Lead of Drupal. “With Drupal 11, we've made Drupal more intuitive, powerful, and flexible, ensuring it continues to lead in web development and digital experience creation."
Moving to Druapl 11 has also involved a few things being removed from core, mainly because they were not being used by significant number of sites, All these modules have found a home in the contrib space where they can be maintained moving forward: Actions UI, Activity Tracker, Book, Forum, Statistics and Tour.
For those wanting a deep dive into the technical details, please see this video from Gábor Hojtsy is illuminating.
More on the way
Aside from the release of Drupal 11 there are many other initiatives which should be landing code soon. In particular Automatic Updates, which allow for an easier update procedure for site builders, and Project Browser, which allows for easier discovery and installation of new modules. Both of these advancements will dramatically improve the experience for ambitious site-builders who want to build stuff quickly and easily.
Drupal’s open source innovation keeps pressing ahead with the release of Drupal 11, including milestone features like Automatic Updates and Project Browser. These features will be key to the success of the new Drupal Starshot project, which will see Drupal become even easier to use for anyone wanting to unleash the power of the world’s leading enterprise CMS.
Owen Lansbury, Drupal Association Board Chair
Our take
Since Drupal 8, Drupal has a more defined release cycle with a focus on API stability with API deprecations being controlled and more predictable. The end result is a software product which is able to continuously evolve with new features and provide the ability for site owners to upgrade with much reduced effort. As the deprecated features are known in advance, sites can evolve and adapt with an eye to the future. Moving between major versions is now much simpler than it was in the past. This incremental approach is a big win for site owners looking for stability, consistency and security.
Seen in this light, Drupal 11 is not a giant leap forward. It is a solid progression bringing Drupal forward into the future and unlocking the potential for more advancements. For those assessing Drupal 11, the new features may not be so attention grabbing - they are more developer oriented. However, under the hood the foundations have been laid for future developments.
The introduction of Recipes and Single Directory Components will open the way for a more pluggable and flexible ecosystem which should see a renaissance in site building and more editor friendly workflows. The new Starshot Initiative, for example, is targeted at the mid market and marketers. It will be interesting to see how the Recipe ecosystem emerges and what patterns are settled on as the community experiments with new ways of building sites.
Updating modules
Updating a module for Drupal 11 is generally a simple process which involves very small changes to the packaging of the modules to indicate that they were Drupal 11 compatible. Updating modules in this way provides assurance to sites and distros which are relying on the functionality.
In the lead up to Drupal 11 reviewed the modules it maintained and ensured that they were up to speed. We maintain a number of modules which are use in the GovCMS distro and so it was important for these to be updated.
Enjoying the benefits
Sites updating to Drupal 11 will need to run PHP 8.3 which brings a number of speed improvements. It is great to see PHP improving over the years to be more performant. CMS’s such as Drupal can really benefit from these improvements. Drupal has the caching side of things nailed pretty well, however, this doesn’t apply so much for the logged in editor experience. The new Drupal 11 should definitely feel snappier for those working on the backend of the site.
Conclusion
Welcome to the world, Drupal 11. We look forward to working with you.
