Drupal 11 is here. This is what we’re excited about

We’ve known it was coming for a while now, thanks to Drupal’s new release timeline, but now that Drupal 11 is actually here we can dive into some cool new features. These include better site-building tools, an improved content editing experience and a simple (and getting simpler with every version) upgrade process.

But I’ve just installed Drupal 10...

Does it feel like you’ve just updated to Drupal 10 and here you’re being told it’s time to update to Drupal 11? The good news is that you don’t have to upgrade immediately. Drupal 10 will be supported until the release of Drupal 12 in the second half of 2026. 

The releases of previous major versions of Drupal were often forced by technology that they were dependent on. For example if versions of Symfony or CKEditor reached their end-of-life then the version of Drupal that used it would also need upgrading. 

Drupal 11 will use fresh dependencies that will be supported for a long time: These include Symfony 7, jQuery4 and PHPUnit 10. 

But now there is overlapping support for various versions of Drupal – Drupal 10 was released at the end of 2022, Drupal 11 in August 2024 and Drupal 12 will be released in the second half of 2026. This means that besides long-term support versions, (such as a 10.4 and 10.5) Drupal 10 will not have any more minor releases and will be supported for another two years. 

Then of course, there’s still Drupal 7, which has been around for 14 years. It will officially (finally) reach its end of life on January 5, 2025. So if you still have a Drupal 7 site, you should really start planning on upgrading it to Drupal 11 as soon as possible.

Drupal 11: What’s new? 

The newer technology leveraged in Drupal 11 provides a foundation for innovative new features that will improve the experience for content authors and greatly expand the capabilities of Drupal. 

Here are some of our favourite improvements to Drupal: 

For CMS users 

• CKEditor autoformat: CKEditor 5, Drupal’s built-in WYSIWYG editor, includes an autoformat feature that recognises when you are typing a list or a header and automatically formats it accordingly. CKEditor also allows for Markdown shortcuts to be used during the editing process to avoid having to do it by using the menu. 
• Field user interface revamp: Content modelling and management is easier thanks to numerous improvements to the user interface. 
• Floating bulk operations: A floating action bar enables users to launch actions on multiple selected content items quickly. 
• Performance improvements: Drupal has numerous performance-enhancing features including BigPipe for smoother page loading and support for lazy image loading. And don’t discount the effect that PHP 8.3 (which you’ll need for Drupal 11) has on security, performance, and supportability of your sites. It is also much faster than PHP 8.1 and 8.2. 
• Project announcements: This is quite nifty, and shows any Drupal news, including updates and events. 
• New experimental navigation module: This is a side navigation tab that easily allows you to access everything you need to access in the CMS as well as easily add new content. It looks fantastic. 
• Workspaces is stable: This is a game changer for content editors. It allows you to create an entire new section for your website and only make it go live when you want it to go live. The Workspaces module allows for staging and publishing multiple content changes at once and previewing how they will look in their entirety. This allows for multiple scenarios to be prepared – for example the results of an election – and then the appropriate scenario can be published as soon as the election results are available. 
• New access policy: API Website access has suddenly become really exciting; moving beyond permissions and user roles. Other conditions and contexts can now be taken into account, like whether the user employed two-factor authentication or whether they reached an activity rate limit. 
• Taxonomy term revisions and moderation support: Taxonomy now provides a visual user interface that can be used to view, revert, and delete revisions. 

For developers 

• Single directory components: The introduction of Single Directory Components means that components are easier to find, can be reused on the site in different places, and are now easier to write on the front end. 
• Decoupled menus with Linkset: Dedicated endpoints using the Linkset standard help simplify navigation between content elements in decoupled scenarios. This is going to be useful for both frontend developers and non-developers alike. 
• Easier block management: Block Management is more flexible. For example you can now create custom blocks directly under Structure in the administrative interface.

What about the contributed modules I’m using? 

Some modules won’t be updated to Drupal 11 on time. There is a Project Update Working Group that will be able to intervene with contributed projects. 

For those projects that don’t get intervention there are Composer plugins for incompatible projects, including Composer Drupal Lenient and the Composer Patches project which allows you to download patches locally to fix their compatibility. 

Conclusion 

Upgrades have certainly come a long way since Drupal 7. From Drupal 8 onwards there has been a clear update path, and the Drupal 12 upgrade will be even easier. We’re excited about the future of Drupal and we can’t wait to immerse ourselves into Drupal 11 (and beyond).