We have a single server Drupal 9 site (yes, old and we are upgrading) we would like to maximize the performance on. It's a VM with 6 CPU, 12GB RAM, running Apache 2.4 and PHP 8.4. We are currently running the prefork MPM but are testing the following changes:

1. Event MPM
2. PHP8-FPM
3. Opcache

Memory isn't an issue as "free -h" shows no swap being used with 10GB free. The server does require a login via the Drupal simpleSAMLphp module. We are not doing any front-end (i.e. Varnish) or backend (e.g. Redis) caching. We are currently load testing using a script that spawns browser instances from Selenium Grid though we plan to look into k5/locust which would require less testing overhead.

A few questions in terms of setting parameters for the above:

1. This server is dedicated to serving web pages with Drupal. Should we lean towards pm=static vs pm=ondemand/dynamic? We are currently using pm=dynamic.
2. Each php-fpm process seems to consume no more than 100MB. Should we simply divide available memory/100MB to determine the value for pm.max_children?
3. We are looking at the Opcache status from https://github.com/rlerdorf/opcache-status and the numbers look good. Anything we should pay attention to for the opcache settings in PHP-FPM?
4. Any MariaDB settings we should look into?

When load testing the server with 40-50 users, top and mpstat show the following with:

1. pm.max_children = 30
2. pm.start_servers = 9
3. pm.min_spare_servers = 6
4. pm.max_spare_servers = 12
5. pm.max_requests = 100

​

top - 20:05:00 up 1:10, 15 users, load average: 4.85, 2.17, 1.82 Tasks: 373 total, 5 running, 368 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie %Cpu(s): 74.8 us, 8.9 sy, 0.0 ni, 14.3 id, 1.5 wa, 0.0 hi, 0.4 si, 0.0 st MiB Mem : 15691.45+total, 11877.61+free, 2856.645 used, 1348.715 buff/cache MiB Swap: 32767.99+total, 32767.99+free, 0.000 used. 12834.80+avail Mem 20:05:01 CPU %usr %nice %sys %idle 20:05:02 all 87.65 0.00 11.69 0.00 20:05:02 0 89.00 0.00 10.00 0.00 20:05:02 1 88.89 0.00 10.10 0.00 20:05:02 2 86.00 0.00 14.00 0.00 20:05:02 3 88.00 0.00 11.00 0.00 20:05:02 4 86.00 0.00 14.00 0.00 20:05:02 5 88.00 0.00 11.00 0.00 

According to /fpm-status, active process=30. The performance seems to indicate the site performance at 40-50 users is under load as response is <3s. 40-50 users seems low but it seems we are running into CPU issues so unless we can get CPU usage down, I don't see the number of users increasing.

Is it just me or did they remove the ability to add 'stars' to modules and themes on drupal.org?

Read online about how makers and takers. The problem is that many users of #Drupal don't want or aren't able to donate hundreds of dollars. Why don't we use micro-crowdfunding?

We've recently changed the editing experience in Bootiga for our Drupal Commerce theme.

We started with Drupal's Layout Builder, but after testing it with non-technical store owners, we wanted something more intuitive.

So we've moved to Layout Paragraphs + Mercury Editor — and so far, we're really happy with the result.

Our goal with Bootiga is to make Drupal Commerce as easy as possible for non-technical users.

Do you know of any better alternatives to Mercury Editor for this? What would you choose today if the main priority was the best possible editing experience for the end user?

Hey, Robert from the MariaDB Foundation here. We run a yearly survey on how people actually use MariaDB. If you went with MySQL, PostgreSQL or something else we want to hear from you too :)

https://mariadb.typeform.com/to/tS69UzVo?utm_source=reddit_drupal

Drupal was one of the most common applications running MariaDB in last year's survey. I'm curious, what database are you using Drupal with, and how did you choose it? Any problems or wishes related to the database?

We revamped the questions this year and split them by role (developer, DBA, operator) to save you time. Over 400 answers so far, looking forward to reading yours. Anonymous results will be published at mariadb.org/survey.

Thanks for taking the time!
Cheers, Robert at MariaDB Foundation

Been doing Drupal migrations for about 10 years and seeing the same thing play out right now that happens every EOL cycle.

Teams think they have until December 9. They don't. Enterprise change freezes typically start mid-November. Some nonprofits freeze earlier because of year-end giving. A proper D10 → D11 migration takes 2-4 months.

So if you're starting now, you're already in rush territory. Starting in October means going into December with things half done.

The other thing nobody talks about — most good Drupal agencies are already booked into Q4. You're not just racing the calendar. You're racing everyone else who also waited.

If you want to check where your site actually stands, run this:

drush pm:list --status=enabled

Check every contrib module against drupal.org/security. That list will tell you exactly how much work is ahead. Happy to look at anyone's output if they want a second opinion.

https://www.drupal.org/psa-2026-09-21

There will be a security release for a widely used contributed module on September 23, 2026 between 17:00 and 21:00 UTC.

We are announcing this release in advance because the affected contributed module is used on a significant portion of Drupal sites, and the upcoming release will include a significant number of advisories. The advisory with the highest risk score for the release is currently rated as critical.

Edit

From slack,

This will be the first time we've handled this many advisories, but we're also taking steps to do as much in advance as possible, so we'll see how it goes and then we'll know how long it takes 🙂

Also,

This will not be covered by Drupal Steward. There are far too many individual advisories, and many of them would not be mitigatable by a WAF rule, so it would give a false sense of security if we did probably. (And nothing is highly critical.)

I'll update the PSA accordingly.

🫠

Drupal 9 marketing site, ~180 pages, 40 blog posts, the one contractor who knew it left. PHP and module updates were piling up, so instead of going to Drupal 10 I pointed Claude Code at it and rebuilt in Next.js.

What it did:

• Read the modules and theme to map content types, fields and views, then pulled the actual content out via JSON:API into MDX files. Fields became frontmatter, embeds became components.
• Rebuilt the theme as React components, close enough that nobody noticed
• Recreated the blog/tag listings as filtering over the files
• Wrote the redirect map for old URLs
• Set up SST with OpenNext: CloudFront, S3, Lambda, Route53 in one config. sst deploy, done.

Where it struggled: ~600 images in weird paths took a few passes, webforms had to be rewritten against Lambda + SES (and I lost spam protection for a week without noticing), and it kept trying to add a headless CMS until I told it Markdown in git IS the CMS.

Drupal's been off two months. Hosting went from $90/mo to ~$4. Content changes are now "open Claude Code, describe the edit, review PR, merge."

Downside: nobody non-technical can edit anything without me. Fine for us now, but I'm wondering if I've just made myself the new single point of failure, same as the contractor was.

What am I missing? Anyone running content-in-git + AI as the CMS past a couple hundred pages?

The Drupal Association is conducting its first-ever Drupal Ecosystem Retrospective. This is a good opportunity to directly give the Drupal Association your candid feedback and thoughts about what you feel is going well and what needs improvement in the Drupalverse.

The due date for filling this out is September 20, 2026 (I have no idea if there’s a specific time; I’m just a random Drupaler who wants as many people in our community to be heard). The due date happens to be the weekend before the Drupal Association’s board retreat and shortly before DrupalCon Rotterdam.

Anyways, please consider filling this out and/or sharing with other fellow Drupalists!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdgHEgx9QbutXygHlgxcJjgLn24gMQok2h2ujB9ePH_JpH9dg/viewform?usp=send_form

Hi everyone!

I'm a Drupal developer from Argentina and I'm considering starting to offer my services as a freelance developer, mainly working with clients from the US or other English-speaking markets.

I have 5+ years of hands-on Drupal experience, working with custom modules, content types, hooks/events, custom blocks, Layout Builder, Twig/CSS, SDC/Storybook, integrations, caching and performance optimization. I also have a broader Full-Stack background with React, Next.js, Node.js/NestJS, PHP/Laravel, Docker, AWS and CI/CD.

I've been working remotely with US-based teams, but most of my current work is through a company rather than directly with clients. So I'm trying to understand what the current freelance market looks like for Drupal developers.

A few questions for those of you already freelancing:

• What hourly rate would be reasonable for someone with my experience?
• What rates are you currently charging or seeing in the market?
• Is it realistic to get freelance work with basic spoken English but good written English, especially for remote work?
• How important is spoken English in your experience? Are most interactions with clients meetings, or is a lot of the communication done asynchronously through Slack/email/tickets?

I'm not necessarily looking to charge US senior rates from day one. I'd rather start with a reasonable rate, build some direct client experience and gradually increase it.

I'd really appreciate any advice or experiences you can share. Thanks!