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We’re bringing you our latest monthly overview of top Drupal articles and news. We hope you enjoy this month’s selection!
Introducing our official Drupal AI Initiative training program: AI Inside Drupal Essentials
The first post we’re highlighting this month is Paul Johnson’s announcement of the official training program for the Drupal AI Initiative, called AIDE (AI Inside Drupal Essentials) and run by DrupalEasy.
The course is designed as a 2-week, 18-hour program, with 3-hour online sessions every other day, with the first session taking place between November 9 and November 20. The cost to register is $600.
The content of the AIDE course is divided into four areas: AI foundations, AI agents, RAG search, and local AI & privacy. The goal of the course is to teach safe and effective use of Drupal AI to anyone working with it.
Drupal CMS 2.2: Multilingual, out of the box
The next August post is another important announcement, this one coming from the Drupal CMS Product Lead Pamela Barone who announced the release of Drupal CMS 2.2, a version that focuses on multilingual capabilities.
Namely, the multilingual improvements include: a new language selector in the installer; translations of Recipe configuration; the new Multilingual Recipe; the option to translate Canvas pages; and a new multilingual demo.
Read more about Drupal CMS 2.2
Intelligent Layouts: Drupal Canvas AI and the Context Layer
Next up, we have an article from Acquia’s Martin Anderson-Clutz, who wrote about how the agentic era is changing the priorities of content platforms and why Drupal Canvas is a tool perfectly positioned for this new reality.
Martin’s article highlights the importance of structure in order for AI agents to be able to both read and write on the platform. However, most content platforms avoided features like content modelling and granular governance, seeing them as unnecessary overhead.
Drupal Canvas, produced and supported by the Drupal AI Initiative, is different. With Drupal Canvas, it’s easy to create content that not only looks good, but is on-brand as well thanks to its streamlined Context Control Center.
Read more about Drupal Canvas AI & content layouts
Drupal Commerce vs. Shopify
We continue with an article for the Centarro blog, written by Matt Robison who compares Shopify and Drupal Commerce. As an open source e-commerce framework, Drupal Commerce brings a lot of flexibility that’s missing in a leading commercial platform such as Shopify, for example in terms of code ownership, data, customer relationships and feature roadmap.
Matt provides a quick at-a-glance comparison before diving into specific differences between the two platforms. He concludes that Shopify is a great choice for DTC and B2C brands, while Drupal Commerce is optimal for deeper B2B capabilities, or operations that involve multiple brands, especially in case of integrations with enterprise systems.
Read more about Drupal Commerce vs. Shopify
The AWS Migration: Building the Next Chapter of Drupal’s Infrastructure
Moving on, we have a post by Tim Lehnen (hestenet), CTO of the Drupal Association, part one of a three-part series of posts about the impact that the AWS Open Source Credits program has had on the Drupal community. This first part focuses on the Drupal testing infrastructure, specifically GitLab CI (continuous integration) that autoscales on AWS.
As Tim highlights, this velocity is a huge benefit for contributors. But for a project with a digital footprint as significant as Drupal’s, which powers the infrastructure behind numerous universities, government and international organisations, velocity is also vital to continuous safety and security.
Read more about the AWS Open Source Credits program’s impact on Drupal
Vibing Drupal: Tale 1 - Using AI to build and contribute a module
In the next August article, Jacob Rockowitz shares his experience of using AI to build a module and contributing it back to Drupal, which he views as the fundamental greenfield project in terms of Drupal contribution.
The module Jacob’s article focuses on came from a custom solution for a client, resulting in the Team Reference module. As he points out, using AI to guide him through every step of the contribution process significantly lowers the barrier to entry for contributors.
In addition to helping contribute the module, AI was also put to good use in the initial research and development, which involved replicating the code and concept of the original feature rather than porting the code.
Read more about using AI to contribute a Drupal module
DriesNote Rotterdam: Drupal is light-years ahead of its reputation
Of course we have to include Ryan Witcombe’s recap of the latest DriesNote keynote by Dries from DrupalCon Rotterdam.
The first topic he focused on this time was Europe’s need for digital sovereignty, which Drupal is in a great position to guarantee as a “Stewarded Open Source” project. He also revealed and showcased the official Drupal AI Demo which is now available to try out.
Another big piece of news in the DriesNote was the announcement of the Drupal Advocacy Program, a pilot initiative that will award contribution credits for helping people discover and understand Drupal, e.g. by producing demos and tutorials.
Read more about the DrupalCon Rotterdam DriesNote
The Drupal Advocacy Program: Helping the world catch up to what Drupal can do.
In the final article we’re highlighting this month, Ryan Witcombe expands upon the Drupal Advocacy Program he mentions in his DriesNote recap. The goal of the initiative is to improve Drupal’s outdated reputation and showcase how much the platform and its capabilities have evolved in recent years.
Any kind of content about modern Drupal can be submitted as part of the Advocacy program, from blog and LinkedIn posts to recording tutorials and podcast episodes. The plan is also to have content themes 4 to 6 times a year, where content about the current theme will yield 2 to 3 times the amount of credits.
