Drupal 11: improvements and new features you should be aware of
Read about improvements and new features of Drupal 11 and how to upgrade to it from previous versions.
Drupal in 2026 remains a strong enterprise CMS, with modern capabilities and proven scalability. For those who doubt, we debunk the myths about Drupal.
Drupal has always had a reputation among tech folks and enterprises for being powerful, flexible, but difficult. As we’re moving into 2026, a question keeps coming up: Is Drupal still relevant at the enterprise level, or is it fading?
This article looks at current usage, enterprise case studies, common myths, and what may shape its future. As a Drupal analyst, I also draw from community surveys and public examples. For companies considering serious Drupal work, see Attico’s Drupal Development services for what such engagements look like.
To ground things, here are some up-to-date numbers:
These stats together suggest Drupal is far from dead; it remains quite alive in enterprise, high-traffic, and mission-critical environments.
Here are examples and patterns where Drupal shines in 2026 among enterprises and large organizations.
Drupal’s maturity in multilingual content, strong access control, and security make it popular in government. For instance, many federal and state agencies in the USA still use Drupal for major portals.
Also, entities like the European Commission, the City of London, and municipal governments continue to use Drupal for their public websites. These often have tight requirements around uptime, multilingual content, compliance, and stakeholder workflows.
Universities often have complex content structures: departments, publications, events, student and faculty portals. Drupal is a good fit for this. Oxford University is still on Drupal.
Also, projects in Latin America (e.g., Seed EM) show universities and educational institutions upgrading or migrating to recent versions of Drupal, implementing features like responsive design, and library portals.
Big publications, editorial sites, and content-heavy businesses still use Drupal because it handles editorial workflows, versioning, user roles, and content staging well.
Popular sites like The Economist, Tesla sites (for investor relations), and Pfizer are cited among the top Drupal websites.
Companies that need custom integrations, ecommerce, multilingual content, strong security, high performance, or government-level compliance still often choose Drupal. One article, “Is Drupal Dying in 2025?” stresses that while simpler CMSs dominate simpler, smaller sites, Drupal continues to be “the best CMS in 2026” for enterprise, high-security, scalable websites.
There are thousands of companies using Drupal in the United States: TheirStack database lists over 6,200 companies in the U.S. that use Drupal for one or more of their web properties.
Also, big names like PayPal, Nokia, General Electric, and Pfizer are listed among high-traffic Drupal websites.
These use cases show Drupal remains relevant, especially where requirements are non-trivial: security, integrations, scale, multilingual, performance, and enterprise workflows.
As with any technology with a long history, myths accumulate. Here are common myths about Drupal’s decline or weaknesses, and what reality shows.
| Myth | Reality |
|---|---|
| Myth 1: Drupal is outdated/legacy only | While early versions (Drupal 7) are phasing out, versions 10 and 11 bring modern PHP, improved performance, compatibility, and architecture. Many large Drupal migrations are ongoing. |
| Myth 2: It’s not secure/hard to maintain | On the contrary, many governments and enterprises trust Drupal due to its security team, regular patches, and robust access control. Also, Drupal’s ecosystem includes many modules/tools for security hardening. |
| Myth 3: Drupal is only for technical folks — too complex for content teams | Drupal’s authoring experience has improved. Layout Builder, structured content, upgraded media management, and admin UI improvements make content editing easily approachable. Also, with decent training, enterprises report content teams being productive. |
| Myth 4: There aren’t enough people/community support | The community is active: contributed modules are numerous, developers continue to contribute, agencies specializing in Drupal are thriving (see the list of companies and agencies still focusing on Drupal in the USA, Europe, and Latin America). |
| Myth 5: Alternatives (WordPress, headless JS) are better in all cases | For sites with simpler needs, a lighter CMS may win. But for enterprise-grade needs — e.g., scalability, multilingual, performance, integrations — Drupal often delivers more out of the box or with more predictable customization. |
Of course, Drupal has also had to adapt. Some things that troubled Drupal in past years have evolved; some are still sticking points.
Putting together stats, use cases, and what’s changed, here are the areas where Drupal in 2026 has strong advantages in enterprise settings.
For institutions (government, healthcare, finance), compliance isn’t optional. Drupal’s core has a dedicated security team. It supports role-based access, audited direct permission sets, and many modules for logging and security auditing. Enterprises often prefer it due to its long-term support and mature policies.
Drupal’s module system (themes, contributed modules, custom ones) allows deep customization. Enterprises often require custom integrations: commercial CRMs, internal data systems, and complex content workflows. Drupal is more “bendable” for those needs.
Many enterprises have multiple regions, languages, and brands. Drupal provides mature tools for multilingual content, translation workflows, and multisite setups (sharing code/config but differing content/branding).
For large content publishing, workflows matter: editorial review, staging, versioning, access control, and content moderation. Drupal’s support for workflow modules, revision history, and content staging is still among the best.
While Drupal requires more setup, hosting, and sometimes more specialized developer work, enterprises that commit often report more predictable maintenance, better performance under load, and a stronger security posture. Over a 5–10 year horizon, this can make Drupal more cost-effective than cheaper platforms that struggle to scale.
To show Drupal in action in 2026, here are several real, verifiable enterprise-scale examples:
These cases show not just small websites but real complexity: high traffic, content diversity, performance, security, and multilingual.
How does Drupal stack up in enterprise vs. other CMS/stacks in 2026?
| Feature | Drupal strengths | Situations where alternatives might win |
|---|---|---|
| Scalability & content complexity | Very strong: workflows, revisions, permission systems | Simpler content sites, blogs with few pages — WordPress or headless CMS might be quicker to set up |
| Security & compliance | Enterprise-grade security, strong community, and patch release schedule | SaaS platforms with built-in security, but less control over edge cases |
| Flexibility for custom integrations | Excellent: custom modules, APIs, multisite, multilanguage | Lightweight or headless CMS may be simpler for APIs, frontends without heavy backend logic |
| Developer/talent cost & availability | More specialized; fewer developers compared to more common platforms | Easier to hire for commodity CMSs or JS frameworks |
| Speed of deployment for simple use cases | Higher initial cost but pay-off in stability | For very simple websites or landing pages, cheaper CMS/site builder tools win upfront |
Based on current trends, here’s what will be happening in the near future:
More enterprises will adopt headless/decoupled Drupal setups. Using Drupal as a content API backend, and front-end frameworks (React, Vue, etc.) for the UI. This lets them get modern UX while preserving Drupal’s backend strengths.
Enterprises considering Drupal in 2025 often raise some objections. Here’s how to address them:
Use experienced Drupal development partners. Leverage distributions or starter kits. Budget for hosting and performance from day one.
Regular maintenance; staying reasonably up-to-date; use of automated testing; continuous integration pipelines; Drupal 10 → 11 migrations are well-documented now.
Hire partners with proven enterprise Drupal track record; invest in internal training; use community; use agencies in regions with good Drupal talent.
Proper caching, CDN, optimizing frontend, using headless endpoints where needed, lazy-loading content, etc.
Drupal isn’t the best tool for every project, and that’s okay. Use it when your enterprise's needs include:
It might be overkill (in setup cost & developer time) for:
The data and examples point clearly: yes, Drupal is very much still thriving in 2026, especially in enterprise settings. It may have ceded some ground in simpler use cases to more lightweight CMS or site builders, but for organizations that need power, flexibility, security, and stability, it remains one of the strongest candidates.
Drupal is not the easiest option in every case — it demands investment in infrastructure, expertise, and maintenance. But the payoffs are often worth it for enterprise needs: scalable, secure, rich content platforms that endure.
For companies evaluating whether to use Drupal for enterprise-scale projects, or migrating/upgrading, I strongly recommend assessing the total cost of ownership (including infrastructure, development resources, upgrades) and working with partners who understand performance, security, and scale from experience.
Read about improvements and new features of Drupal 11 and how to upgrade to it from previous versions.
In 2000, while most students at the University of Antwerp were immersed in the usual distractions of campus life, a young Dries Buytaert was quietly writing the first chapter of the Drupal history.