We are Drupal developers. We build websites using the critically-acclaimed Drupal Content Management System.
About Drupal
A Powerful and Flexible CMS
Drupal is an open-source content management system (CMS) that has been empowering users to create and manage complex websites since its inception in 2001. Developed by a global community of contributors, Drupal stands out for its versatility, scalability, and robust security features. Whether you're building a simple blog, a corporate website, or a large-scale enterprise application, Drupal provides the tools and flexibility needed to achieve your goals.
A Rich History
The Drupal project was founded by Dries Buytaert as a message board and quickly evolved into a fully-fledged CMS. Over the years, it has grown to become one of the most popular CMS platforms in the world, with millions of users and a vibrant community that contributes to its ongoing development. The commitment to innovation and community-driven development has allowed Drupal to adapt to changing web standards and user needs.
Core Values
At the heart of Drupal are its core values: collaboration, inclusivity, and transparency. The Drupal community thrives on collaboration, bringing together developers, designers, and content creators to contribute to a shared vision of an open web. This commitment to inclusivity ensures that everyone, regardless of background or experience, can participate in the project and contribute to its success. Drupal, which has been recognized as a Digital Public Good, is committed to the open web and the ideals of open source. This commitment is so strong that the Drupal Association created an Open Web Manifesto in the year 2023.
The Drupal Association
The Drupal Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the Drupal open-source project and its global community. It started as Drupal VZW in 2006, then became DrupalCon, Inc. in 2008 and finally became Drupal Association in 2011. The Association provides the infrastructure, funding, and resources needed to ensure Drupal's continued success and growth.
Key roles of the Drupal Association include:
Drupal’s Governance and Board of Directors
The Drupal Project is guided by a transparent and inclusive governance model, supported by a governing body called the Board of Directors, which is part of the Drupal Association.
Key Features of Drupal’s Governance:
- Community-Led Decision-Making
Drupal's decision-making processes are highly democratic, emphasizing collaboration across its global contributors. Anyone, from individual developers to large organizations, can participate in shaping Drupal's direction. - A Diverse and Transparent Board
The Drupal Association Board of Directors comprises a mix of community-elected and appointed members who bring expertise from different industries and regions. This ensures diverse representation and accountability to the global Drupal community. - Leadership by Dries Buytaert
Dries Buytaert, the creator of Drupal, serves as the Project Lead, ensuring continuity in Drupal's vision while working closely with the community to adapt to changing technologies. - Committees and Working Groups
The Drupal community operates through specialized working groups focused on areas like documentation, security, and code standards. These groups ensure that every facet of Drupal is addressed with care and expertise.
Why Choose Drupal?
Drupal continues to evolve, incorporating the latest technologies and best practices to remain a leading choice for web development.
Scalable and flexible
Being flexible and scalable means that Drupal can scale with your project, e.g. let's say you start up a new business, and you want to set up a small website to test the waters, and you want to start with a website of say 5–20 pages and probably 100+ users to introduce your new project. Let's say you get lucky after some time and your project grows, and your business begins to expand, and now you begin to have need to have more functionality and content on the website. More and more people are beginning to use your website. Let's say that now you will need lots of content with hierarchical categorization. Also, you need users to be able to query your database to easily find items they are looking for, and the database is getting bigger with more content. Also, you begin to have users running into thousands and multiples of thousands and many of them accessing the site simultaneously. You need to scale up, your little fancy website needs to step up and take some heat. If you built with Drupal, this is the point you would say, 'Lord, I thank you I made the right choice.' If you built with Drupal and you start scaling up, Drupal will be like, 'Congrats you made it, cheer up and let's go get them!'
Here are some of the reasons why we choose to work with Drupal:
1) Structured Content
With Drupal, you do not just build pages, but you create content with typed fields (field types). Drupal handles content in chunks and not blobs. This allows content to be modeled as granularly as desired; this is what it means for content to be structured. With structured content, fancy styling and markup can be added at the point of output, thereby allowing the content to be stored in the database as clean as possible without necessarily containing CSS (nor depending on CSS) or HTML.
This allows different presentation of the same content using Drupal view modes and Views displays.
Structured content is reusable content; the same content can be reused over and over both internally within the site and externally outside the site. External reuse makes for interoperability with other sites, platforms, applications and devices. When content is stored in chunks, you will have access to clean web service APIs that make it easier to decouple your website and serve content to native mobile applications, JavaScript (React, AngularJS, Vue.js) front ends, static site generators (Gatsby), IoT devices, in-flight entertainment systems, display devices, voice interfaces, kiosks, other browser applications, and the like. You will enjoy the added advantage of channel-neutral content.
The chunks approach makes your content flexible. You will not be restrained by the boundaries of blobs.
2) Some Really, Really Powerful Functionalities
With extended taxonomy, content types, user roles and some really powerful modules, like Views, Layout Builder, ECA, Token, Webform, Field API and many others; and with modern Drupal using Views for system pages including the front-page, and now having blocks, profiles, comments to be field-able entities, you have enormous site building power to draw on.
Drupal provides fine-grained content and user permissions that give so much control over site management.
3) The Drupal API, Modules, Hooks, Events and the Plugin System
Drupal is a hybrid between a standard CMS and a very progressive Framework. With Drupal's implementation of hooks and callbacks through clever function naming convention, it hands the raw power of customization to its community. Drupal modules interact with each other through hooks and exposed APIs thereby providing a powerful architecture that offers an extremely flexible system because, as a developer, you can further extend available modules because of unified coding standards. You will also find that many popular modules have lots of sub modules being other contributors extending the functionalities of existing modules.
Drupal 8 introduced the Events and Plugin systems. In Drupal 7, hooks were extensively used to alter or extend Drupal core and contributed modules. By using the Drupal hooks system, you can extend and alter functionality in your own custom module, or theme. Hooks still exist in modern Drupal but a good number have been replaced with events. Events are essentially the object-oriented way of implementing hooks. The event system is built on the Symfony event dispatcher component.
The new Plugin system is a unified way of implementing pluggable components with a common API, the Plugin API. Plugins in modern Drupal are small pieces of functionality that are swappable. This has replaced Drupal 7's hook based system of defining such functionality. The plugin types provided by modern Drupal core are Blocks, Field formatters, Views plugins, Conditions and Migrate source.
4) Security and Scalability
One strength that is always unanimously given to Drupal is security. It is agreed to be the more secure and scalable platform. This is why so many government websites from across the world are built with Drupal. Among the most dedicated Drupal users are governments from around the world. Let's start with Nigeria, some of Nigerian government websites that use Drupal include the Ministry of Science and Technology - National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion, the Ministry of Finance - Joint Tax Board (JTB), the Ministry of Finance - Tax Appeal Tribunal, Yobe State Government, Nigeria Police Academy, Nigerian Bar Association, Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority and others.
Next, the United States. The Obama administration moved The White House website to Drupal in 2009 in a landmark win for opensource software. In 2017 the Trump government moved the site to Wordpress. Aside from whitehouse.gov, DigitalGov gives list of Content Management Systems used by US government agencies. You will find how extensively the US government use Drupal from the list, check the link. Other sites from the US: The Empire State Building.
Just like the US, the UK also uses Drupal extensively: The home of The Royal Family, The British Council, The Mayor of London, it is also an extensive list from central governments to local councils to other government agencies, check the link again. LocalGov Drupal is a distribution and install profile built to help UK councils publish public facing websites quicker, cheaper and better. It is a partnership of councils across the UK and Ireland that work together to design, develop and share Drupal code to help one another serve their citizens more efficiently.
Canada uses Drupal, Prime Minister of Canada, Open Data Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), and lots of Canadian government websites (this is a Wiki page so a few links may be dead and a few sites may not actually run on Drupal but most are Drupal sites).
France uses Drupal, the French government, the French Senate, French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry and lots of French government websites (this is same Wiki page).
Russia uses Drupal, The Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the European Union, The Russian Federal Agency of Natural Resources Management, The Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia - Perm Region, The Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia - Novosibirsk Region.
Italy uses Drupal, Presidency of the Council of Ministers, The State Attorney, Italian Open Data portal, Agency for Digital Italy, The Italian Space Agency (ASI) and Linea Amica.
India uses Drupal, National portal of India, Open Government Data Platform, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, myGOV.in, Indian Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Indian Directorate General Defence Estates, India Water Portal and lots of Indian government websites.
Belgium uses Drupal, King of Belgium, Belgium.be, Prime Minister of Belgium, and Only in Belgium.
Australia uses Drupal, the Australian government, Prime Minister of Australia, Department of Health, ... in fact, the Australian Government created a content management system GovCMS (a Drupal distribution) developed as a cost-effective option for building government websites. Today (August 2020), 91 Australian government agencies use GovCMS. At the peak of the pandemic, the platform saw 2 billion hits per month, 100,000 pageviews per minute, and 187,000 concurrent users. Drupal is secure and scalable!
Other countries and governments using Drupal for their websites include the government of Estonia, Government of Bermuda, the official website of the New Zealand Government, the South African government, Kenyans.co.ke, Germany's http://www.deutschland.de, Japan's National Library, President of Dominican Republic, Central Bank of Sudan, National Library of Ireland, Sri Lankan Army, Taiwan Government Open Data, and a host of others. Find other case studies here and here.
Obviously, government websites is a 'Drupal territory'.
Security and scalability are also the reasons leading educational institutions and lots and lots of schools use Drupal. Over 80 percent of top higher education websites across the world are built with Drupal, so we can just say the top echelon higher ed industry is another Drupal territory. (Read this report to back up 80% instead of the more popular 70% statistic). Let's get with the list: University of Ibadan, University of Benin, University of Jos, Federal University of Otuoke, National Open University of Nigeria, Government College Ibadan, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, The Federal College of Education, Obudu, Federal Polytechnic, Daura, Howard University, Harvard University, Brown University, Rutgers University, University of Oxford, MIT, Stanford University + Stanford Sites, University of Prince Edward Island, Karlstad University, Zaman University, Bentley University, Uncommon Schools, University of Waterloo, Yale University, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Cornell University (Careers), Cornell University (News), University of London, University of Cambridge, University of Edinburgh, University of Westminster, University of Suffolk, University of Surrey, University of West London and many others. Did you notice that all 8 Ivy League schools are in there! Find more schools here, here and here.
5) More Global Sites Use Drupal
So many more prestigious websites use Drupal, namely Bible.org, The United Nations, The World Bank Live, The World Bank Consultations, The World Bank Open Learning Campus, World Economic Forum, NASA, UNESCO, UNAIDS, USAID, CERN, ICANN (Internet Committee for Assigned Names and Numbers), International Atomic Energy Agency, The European Union, The Commonwealth, The African Union, Africa Investment Forum, World Food Programme, International Committee of the Red Cross, Amnesty International UK, Médecins Sans Frontières, Save the Children Nigeria, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam International, Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI), Doctors Without Borders, ActionAid, Action Against Hunger, International Rescue Committee, Greenpeace Greenwire, Rotary International, International Foundation for Electoral Systems, World Vision International, Equal Opportunity Community Initiative, Habitat for Humanity International, Environmental Defense Fund, Science Magazine, Worldwatch Institute, The Union of International Associations (UIA), The Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential, Gun Violence Archive, General Electric, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Johnson & Johnson Nigeria, BioNTech SE, Moderna, Novartis, Novavax, Bayer, Virgin.com, Flight Centre Travel Group, Travel Nation, Eagle Air, Airlink, Air Seychelles, Gulf Air, Air Arabia, Oman Air, Air France–KLM, United Airlines Holdings, Lamborghini, TESLA Motors, Xerox, TAG Heuer, Nestlé Cereals, Nestlé Purina Petcare, Cummins, McDonald's Austria, McDonald's Spain, The Pulitzer Prize, The Man Booker Prize, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Emmy Awards, The Academy Awards aka The Oscars, BAFTA (The British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards, The MOBO Awards, Film.ru, Warner Media, Warner Records, MSNBC, NBC, Paramount Pictures, Telemundo, The Empire State Building, Pinterest, NOKIA, Taboola, Reporters without borders, International Center for Journalists, Voice of America (VOA), Agence France-Presse (AFP), The World, Sahara Reporters, France 24, The Economist, Newsweek, The International Business Times, AlterNet, The Hill, Patch Media, (James) Bond Lifestyle, The Beatles, Eric Clapton, Lady Gaga, Eminem, Bruno Mars, Lil Uzi Vert, Budweiser, Budweiser Nigeria, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), Major League Soccer, National Basketball Association (NBA), Arsenal FC, Sevilla FC, the Australian Open, Football Association of Finland, Imperial War Museums, Chatham House, Turner Broadcasting General Entertainment multi-site, MTV UK, InStyle Germany, Playboy Germany, Beat FM Lagos, Beat FM London, Naija FM Lagos and Ibadan, Lagos Talks FM, Catholic.com, Al-Islam.org, Nasdaq, Amman Stock Exchange (ASE), Euronext, FCMB, The EXIM Bank of the United States, The Schaffhauser Kantonalbank (SHKB) of Switzerland, VPBank of Vietnam, Mint.com, PayU Multisite, Opensource.com from Red Hat, Magento, Magento Chinese Service Support, DocuSign, Rackspace, Keyword Tool, We Make Websites, Typepad, Tableau Software, Letyshops, Commission Junction, IBM, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), LiNUX.COM, Linux Journal, Windows Central, Android Central, French Community of Ubuntu Users, The Common Application, The College Board, WAEC Nigeria, Schoology, The Church of England, McLean Bible Church, Salisbury Cathedral, United Church of Canada, Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Evangelical Free Church of America and many others. Find more sites here, here, here, here or here.
6) The Community
Drupal has a very large community that is very active, helpful, helping one another and filled with so much love for the code!
7) Developer Pay
Demand for Drupal developers is increasing globally and is going to keep increasing, judging by available pointers.
8) Modern Drupal implements Industry Standards technology
Up until the year 2015, when Drupal 8 was released, Drupal had reinvented itself with every major version release making big rewrites, sacrificing backward compatibility for constant evolution. Drupal 8 was a huge change from Drupal 7; the template engine changed from PHPTemplate to Twig, the paradigm changed from procedural to mostly object-oriented and lots of major changes. Version 7 broke compatibility with 6, 6 with 5, and so on. But starting with Drupal 8, which was the last rewrite of Drupal, Drupal pledged to keep backward compatibility layers and there will be no more rewrites.
Modern Drupal is built on a foundation of best practices and cutting-edge technology, ensuring that it remains a powerful and flexible content management system. It natively supports HTML5 and aligns with the latest PHP standards, including PHP 8, which brings enhanced performance and security features. Modern Drupal leverages Composer for dependency management, PHPUnit for testing, and integrates top-notch libraries such as Guzzle and Symfony components.
With a strong emphasis on modern, object-oriented programming principles, modern Drupal has transitioned from a primarily hook-oriented and procedural approach to embracing widely-used technologies. This evolution has impacted every aspect of the platform, from core functionality to the templating engine.
By incorporating a suite of Symfony components—including Console, DependencyInjection, EventDispatcher, HttpFoundation, HttpKernel, Process, Routing, Serializer, Translation, Validator and Yaml—Modern Drupal offers unprecedented flexibility. In addition, it now utilizes GitLab CI for continuous integration testing, ensuring that code changes are consistently validated and maintained at a high standard.
These enhancements not only streamline development processes but also align Drupal with contemporary programming practices, making it easier for developers familiar with modern PHP frameworks to contribute.
As a result, Modern Drupal opens its doors to the broader PHP community, enabling developers to leverage their existing skills within the Drupal ecosystem. This inclusivity fosters collaboration and innovation, empowering users to build robust, scalable websites with ease.
Modern Drupal comes with built-in Web Services functionality that allows it to serve as a powerful data source. It can output content in widely-used formats such as JSON or XML, with the JSON becoming stable in core as of Drupal 8.7. This capability enables you not only to retrieve data but also to post information back to Drupal from the front end.
The implementation of Hypertext Application Language (HAL) in modern Drupal simplifies the use of web service capabilities, making it easier for developers to leverage these features. As a result, information on your website is accessible not just to users via web browsers but also in formats that can be consumed by various programs, applications, and devices. This facilitates cross-platform and cross-device interoperability, enhancing the overall user experience and expanding the reach of your content.
9) Native multilingual support
Modern Drupal offers robust multilingual support right out of the box, with up to 100 languages available and four core modules dedicated to language and translation management. During installation, Drupal automatically detects your browser's language preferences and suggests a language option. If you select a language, it seamlessly downloads and installs the necessary translation files.
Every content entity in modern Drupal is fully translatable, ensuring that your website can cater to a diverse audience. The platform also includes a powerful backend system for transliteration, making it easier to manage language-specific content efficiently.
10) Drupal is API-first
Modern Drupal is designed as an API-first content management system, offering exceptional flexibility in its decoupled architecture. This architecture presents three approaches: coupled, progressively decoupled, and fully decoupled. Each approach allows developers to choose the setup that best fits their needs, a hallmark of Drupal's versatility.
Even when using the coupled approach, Drupal enables you to expose API endpoints, making it easy to share content with various consumer applications. This API-first philosophy empowers developers to build diverse and dynamic web applications, ensuring that Drupal can serve as a robust backend for various front-end technologies. Read more about the amazing ways to decouple Drupal.
11) The Drupal CLI
Drush (short for Drupal Shell) is a command-line tool for Drupal that has been around since Drupal 4 in 2007. It has become a favorite among Drupal developers and advanced site builders. With Drush, you can download, install, and uninstall modules; back up your site; update your Drupal instance; run database commands; export and import site configurations; manage users and roles; clear or rebuild the site cache, and more.
Composer has become a standard in the PHP community, and Drupal fully embraces its use to manage dependencies. In fact, the recommended installation method is to use Composer rather than manual installation. With Composer, you can install Drupal and its dependencies, download modules along with their dependencies, and then manage everything seamlessly with Drush.
This would be a good place to talk about Drupal CMS aka Drupal Starshot. It is a Drupal product scheduled for release on January 15, 2025. It will usher in a new era in Drupal as it will allow non-technical users and people not originally familiar with Drupal to install Drupal with a click and complete their websites using only their browser, without touching any code editor or terminal window. Drupal CMS will be available side by side with Drupal core when released. Read all about it.
If you need a Drupal website, get in touch with us. We are Drupal specialists and thoroughbred professionals.