Drupal is a flexible, open-source content management system (CMS) built for ambitious site builders with projects demanding scalability, customization and security. Trusted by top governments like the U.S. Department of Energy, prestigious universities including Princeton, as well as major enterprises such as Pfizer, Drupal powers complex websites that serve millions of users worldwide.

Designed to scale effortlessly, Drupal enables organizations to manage content across large, multi-team environments or build dynamic digital applications – all with a global community supporting continuous innovation and cutting-edge technology.

Drupal is for ambitious digital experiences. It's more than just a CMS – it’s a platform for building the web of the future.” 

- Dries Buytaert, Drupal Founder 

TL;DR: What is Drupal?

Drupal is an open-source CMS built for complexity. Perfect for governments, universities and enterprises needing structured content, advanced workflows and bulletproof security. Choose Drupal when your content demands more than a basic CMS can deliver.

Drupal CMS is a ready-to-use Drupal package that makes website building simpler and faster. It strips away the complexity. Launched in 2025, it delivers Drupal's power through intuitive drag-and-drop tools – no coding required. Built for marketers and content teams who want enterprise-grade capabilities without the learning curve. 

What makes Drupal special?

Drupal is built for structure and scale; it helps teams manage lots of content, but where it really stands out is when things get more complex.

You can create custom content types with exactly the fields you need (think news articles, staff profiles, product listings or anything else your site needs to organize). These content types are easy to group, sort and display however you want. It’s a flexible system that adapts to your content, not the other way around.

Drupal includes a visual layout builder, a clean editor interface and a media library that makes it easy to manage images, video and other assets. For multi-role teams, Drupal’s permission system lets you control exactly who can change what.

One of Drupal’s biggest strengths is how extendable it is. The core software includes everything you need to get started, and thousands of free modules let you add features like SEO tools, advanced search and content workflows – often without writing custom code.

Some of the most useful features include:

• Structured content modeling.
• Drag-and-drop layout tools.
• Role-based access control.
• Multilingual support.
• Media and file management.
• Revision history and content scheduling.

In January 2025, the Drupal CMS initiative officially launched, offering a simplified version of Drupal designed for non-developers. It includes an improved drag-and-drop experience and more intuitive configuration, making it easier than ever to build with Drupal, even without a technical background.

If you need a CMS that can handle complex content models, multilingual content, or advanced workflows, Drupal has always been a great choice. With the upgrades to Drupal 11, plus the launch of Drupal CMS, Drupal is now also a great option for smaller, simpler sites as well.  

Community, support and security: The Drupal way

Drupal is a CMS – but it’s also a community. Thousands of developers, designers, strategists and content creators contribute to making it better every day. That means constant improvements, regular security updates and a huge library of modules you can use for free.

Security is one of the biggest ways this community shows up. Drupal has earned the trust of organizations like NASA in part because of its rigorous, transparent approach to security updates: 

• Releases: Every Wednesday between 16:00 and 22:00 UTC. 
• Scoring: 25-point vulnerability assessment scale. 
• Process: Coordinated disclosure with patches. 
• Team: Dedicated security advisors review code. 
• Coverage: Core (once a month) and contributed modules (weekly).

Because Drupal is open source, there’s no licensing fee and no vendor lock-in. You own your code, your content and your infrastructure choices. You're never stuck with one provider and can change platforms without starting from scratch.

If you ever need help, there’s a global network of freelancers, agencies and enterprise partners who specialize in Drupal. 

The community also runs events, meetups and a yearly global conference called DrupalCon – a space where ideas are shared, best practices come together, and the platform keeps moving forward – not because someone’s selling it, but because people believe in it.

That kind of collaboration – and accountability – is rare. It’s one of the best reasons to choose Drupal.

How Drupal is built for performance, flexibility and scale

Drupal’s architecture is designed to handle complexity. At its core, it’s made up of building blocks that you can shape around your site’s needs:

• Content types: Define data structures with fields. 
• Views: Query builder for dynamic content display. 
• Users: Account management with profiles.
• Roles: Permission sets for access control. 
• Menus: Navigation structure management.

Nothing is hard-coded, and almost everything is configurable. That means you can build custom workflows, launch new content types or redesign layouts without needing to overhaul your entire site.

It runs on the familiar LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), making it compatible with most hosting environments, but it also supports modern development practices. Developers can use Composer to manage dependencies, Twig for flexible templating and REST or JSON:API to seamlessly share content with other systems. This makes Drupal ideal for both traditional websites and decoupled or headless architectures.

Performance is baked in. Drupal supports caching at multiple levels – pages, blocks and entities – so content loads faster for users. It also integrates smoothly with tools like Varnish and global CDNs, which dramatically reduce server load and maintain speed even during high-traffic events.

For growing teams and global audiences, Drupal has built-in support for multilingual content, granular permission controls and multisite management. That means you can run dozens (or hundreds) of sites from a single codebase, keeping updates consistent and scaling your operations without multiplying your workload. (However, if you’re running Drupal on Pantheon we recommend using our own Upstreams rather than Multisite as this has all of the benefits but none of the drawbacks.)

Drupal vs. WordPress: Choosing the right CMS for your needs

Drupal and WordPress are both powerful, open-source CMSs but they solve different problems.

Drupal is a better fit if you need:

• Structured content with multiple content types and relationships.
• Advanced user roles and granular permission controls.
• Multilingual content management out of the box.
• Complex integrations with other systems or data sources.
• High security and compliance for government or enterprise use.
• A framework that lets developers customize without adding technical debt.

As Josh Koenig, Co-Founder of Pantheon puts it, Drupal “gives you freedom within a framework to customize without piling on technical debt.”

WordPress is a better fit if you need:

• A fast, friendly setup.
• A large plugin ecosystem for extra features.
• An intuitive admin interface with minimal training.
• A strong foundation for blogging, small business or marketing use.
• The most widely used CMS (powering over 43% of all websites).
• A broad talent pool and active user community.

Both platforms can be secured and optimized for performance. However, Drupal is often preferred in environments where compliance, scalability and structure matter most – such as governments, universities and enterprises.

If you’re unsure which to choose, Pantheon supports both, so you can make the right choice for your team and grow confidently either way.

How does Pantheon optimize Drupal?

Drupal gives you the tools to build complex, high-performing websites – but to run well at scale, it needs the right infrastructure.

Pantheon is a WebOps platform built specifically for Drupal (and WordPress). It provides everything you need to keep your Drupal site fast, secure and scalable – from development to deployment and beyond.

Its container-based architecture scales automatically to handle traffic spikes, while a global CDN makes sure content is delivered quickly to visitors around the world.

Regular security updates, HTTPS and a web application firewall are built in. With Autopilot, updates are tested visually before being deployed, so your site stays secure without breaking.

Pantheon also offers Git-based workflows, Dev, Test, Live environments and Multidev for working on multiple features at once. These tools make life easier for developers, while marketers and editors benefit from faster page loads and rock-solid uptime.

Whether you’re managing one Drupal site or hundreds, Pantheon is the game-changer that gives you the foundation to move faster, stay safer and focus on delivering results, not troubleshooting infrastructure.

Pantheon in action: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)’s small web team managed nearly 60 websites on aging LAMP servers, spending weeks manually updating servers and launching sites. This legacy setup slowed development, limited marketing’s control and made upgrades risky and time-consuming. As Catherine Littell, RPI’s Manager of Web Services, explained, “Our LAMP developers held knowledge that left with them, making updates difficult. We needed to take back control.”

After migrating to Pantheon, RPI cut site launch times from weeks to hours. Marketing gained ownership over Drupal content and design, while developers standardized workflows using Pantheon’s Dev,Test, Live and Multidev environments. Automated updates and visual regression testing boosted confidence in upgrades and reduced manual effort. Web Developer Laura Eggleston said, “Pantheon shortened the learning curve and automated update management, letting new developers get up to speed fast.”

This transformation saved time and money, improved website quality and allowed RPI to launch new sites quickly, like a presidential search site completed in one day instead of two weeks. Littell summed it up: “Pantheon gives us the consistency to manage the sites effectively and empower marketing to lead design and content.”

Start building your exceptional Drupal experience with Pantheon

You’ve seen what Drupal can do. With the right tools, the CMS becomes even more powerful.

Pantheon provides the performance, security and scalability your Drupal site needs, simplifying infrastructure management. You get Dev, Test, Live environments, automated updates with visual regression testing, a global CDN and built-in backups – all on a platform trusted by leading agencies, universities and government teams.

Whether you're launching a single site or managing a large portfolio, Pantheon helps you move faster, collaborate better and stay secure! So, are you ready to see what’s possible?

Start for free today or talk to our team about how Pantheon can support your Drupal goals.