Drupal Overview
The world's most powerful open source content management system. Built for ambitious, flexible, and scalable digital experiences.
Built on Drupal
About
What is Drupal?
Drupal is the world's most powerful open source content management system (CMS). A robust architecture, thousands of free modules, and a global community give teams the tools to build anything from a simple blog to a complex enterprise application.
Drupal, Built for What's Next
Dries Buytaert created Drupal in 2000 and still leads the project. Free under the GNU General Public License, Drupal now powers millions of websites, from government portals to Fortune 500 brands. Its open, API-first architecture is exactly what makes it ready for the age of AI agents. Hear why, straight from Drupal's creator.
About
What is Drupal CMS?
Drupal CMS is a ready-to-use platform for marketing teams, content creators, and site builders, built on Drupal 11 core. It ships with advanced media management, SEO tools, AI-driven website building, consent management, analytics, search, automatic updates, and more.
The distinction matters: Drupal core is the underlying open source software developers use to build custom sites. Drupal CMS is a pre-configured, ready-to-use distribution for teams who want enterprise capabilities without starting from scratch.
Get a Head Start On Your Drupal Project
Whether you are a marketer exploring Drupal for the first time or a developer building a production site, there is a starting point for your workflow.
Starter Kit
Drupal CMS Desktop App
Launch a fully functional Drupal CMS site on your computer instantly. No command-line skills or server configuration needed. The quickest way to try Drupal CMS.
Starter Kit
Drupal CMS Installation with Composer
Recommended for developers. Use Composer and a local environment like DDEV for complete control over your Drupal CMS installation.
Starter Kit
Drupal 11 Installation with Composer
Recommended for developers who want the latest Drupal core. Use Composer and a local environment like DDEV for full flexibility.
Value
From Local Development to Production
When you are ready to move from local development to a live, enterprise-grade environment, Acquia Cloud Platform provides the managed hosting, security, and scalability to run Drupal in production. Build locally, then deploy to a platform built for Drupal by Drupal developers.
Why Organizations Choose Drupal
Open source flexibility, enterprise-grade security, and AI-powered tools that let teams build without limits and scale without starting over.
Continuous Innovation and AI
Drupal's open source community and AI initiative keep the platform ahead, with automatic updates and modular recipes for faster building.
Flexible architecture and integrations
Granular content modeling, visual layout tools, and an API-first architecture let teams build custom experiences and connect any tool needed.
Enterprise security and compliance
A dedicated security team and enterprise-grade practices help organizations meet regulations such as GDPR, FedRAMP, and HIPAA without added complexity.
Built for enterprise scale
Multi-site architecture, built-in multilingual support, and proven scalability let organizations grow to any scale without a costly re-architecture later.
Drupal and Acquia: How They Work Together
Drupal is the free, open source platform Dries Buytaert created in 2000. Acquia is the company he co-founded in 2007 to bring it to enterprise scale, with hosting, a low-code CMS, DevOps tooling, and more built around it.
Acquia is also Drupal's largest open source contributor, so every improvement it makes benefits the entire community, a rare alignment of commercial and open source interests.
Drupal Training and Certification
Acquia Certification validates skills in development, site building, and front-end and back-end specialization, and is recognized across the Drupal industry as a benchmark of proven capability. Exam options and pricing are updated periodically, so check the certification page directly.
Explore Drupal Resources
What Is Drupal?
A complete introduction to the world's most powerful open source content management system.
Upgrade to Drupal 11
Everything you need to know about migrating to the latest version of Drupal.
The Drupal Community
One platform. One community. Drupal was created and is driven by one of the largest and most diverse open source communities in the world. That community contributes modules, fixes security issues, mentors newcomers, and gathers at events to shape the platform's future.
Need fast facts about the content management system? See quick answers to some of the most common questions surrounding Drupal today.
| Is Drupal free? |
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Drupal is freely available for anyone to download and use. New users can engage developer or consulting support from the many individuals and agencies who specialize in Drupal.
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| Is Drupal open source? |
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Yes. Drupal is open source software distributed under the GNU General Public License version 2 or later. Anyone can run, study, share, or modify it.
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| What language is Drupal written in? |
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Drupal is written in PHP and also uses a fair amount of JavaScript.
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| What is Drupal Core? |
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Drupal core includes everything needed to create a website, such as blogging, forums, and contact forms, plus modules for content structuring, query building, authentication, permissions, workflow, and multilingual capabilities. Users extend core with additional Drupal modules.
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| Who is the founder of Drupal? |
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Dries Buytaert created Drupal in 2000 and remains the project lead today. He co-founded Acquia in 2007 to provide enterprise support for Drupal.
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| What is the difference between Drupal and Acquia? |
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Drupal is a free, open source content management system Dries Buytaert first developed in 2000. Acquia is the software company he co-founded in 2007 to provide enterprise support for Drupal users. Acquia's products include Acquia Drupal Starter Kits, Acquia Cloud Platform for hosting, Acquia Source CMS, and Code Studio DevOps tools, alongside DAM, PIM, and marketing automation.
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| Is Drupal harder than WordPress? |
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Historically, yes, because Drupal is designed for structured content and complex sites. Drupal CMS narrows that gap with out-of-the-box tools and AI-driven site building, making Drupal far more approachable for non-technical teams.
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| What are Acquia's main competitors? |
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Acquia is most often evaluated alongside Adobe Experience Manager, Sitecore, Optimizely, and WordPress VIP. Acquia builds on open source Drupal, eliminating license costs and vendor lock-in that come with proprietary platforms.
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| How much does Acquia Drupal certification cost? |
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Acquia offers a professional Drupal Certification track with credentials for developers, front-end, and back-end specialists. Exam options and pricing are updated periodically, so visit the Acquia certification page for current details.
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| What is the Drupal Association? |
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The Drupal Association is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit focused on accelerating Drupal, growing the Drupal community, and supporting the project's vision of a safe, secure, and open web for everyone.
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Ready to Get Started?
Ambitious Digital Experiences Start With Drupal
Powered by open source. Backed by Acquia. Built for what's next.