DrupalCon Vienna 2025: Innovation, AI, and the Enduring Power of Community
Collection :
The vibrant city of Vienna recently played host to DrupalCon 2025, a landmark event that brought together the global Drupal community for a week of learning, collaboration, and a glimpse into the future of the leading enterprise open-source content management system. The atmosphere was electric with anticipation, and for good reason. The announcements and sessions at this year's conference painted a clear picture of a platform that is not just evolving, but leaping forward, with a renewed focus on user experience, powerful new, innovative Drupal tools, and the thoughtful integration of artificial intelligence.
For both seasoned Drupal developers and those new to the platform, the message from Vienna was clear: Drupal is more powerful, more accessible, and more innovative than ever before. Let's dive into some of the highlights that have the community buzzing.
A New Era of Site Building: Drupal Templates and the Marketplace
One of the most significant announcements at DrupalCon Vienna was the major progress made on the Drupal Marketplace and the introduction of Drupal Templates. This initiative is set to revolutionize the way Drupal sites are built, making it easier and faster to get started with a beautiful, functional website regardless of technical skill level for your team.
The new Mercury Theme is at the heart of this evolution, providing a modern and flexible foundation for the new Drupal Templates. The Drupal Marketplace, a long-awaited feature, is now a reality and already features its first template, "Byte". This is just the beginning, with a clear roadmap in progress to standardize the recommended approach of building Drupal templates, empowering the community to contribute and expand the marketplace.
The ultimate vision is to enable no-code site building, allowing users to create and customize their sites without writing a single line of code. In a truly open-source fashion, users will also be able to export their site as a new template and share it with the community through the marketplace. This will not only accelerate the development process but also foster a culture of sharing and collaboration all while staying future-focused.
Unleashing Creativity with Drupal Canvas
The excitement in Vienna was palpable during the sessions dedicated to Drupal Canvas, the next-generation visual site-building tool. With the official 1.0 release slated for November 2025, Drupal Canvas is poised to become an indispensable tool for site builders and content creators.
Canvas introduces a new, intuitive way to control content type layouts directly within the Drupal admin UI, a feature referred to as Content Templates. This, combined with the ability to add blocks of content using Code Components, provides an unprecedented level of flexibility and control over the look and feel of a site. The inclusion of popular contributed modules like CKEditor further enhances the content creation experience.
Perhaps the most groundbreaking feature of Drupal Canvas is its potential for integration with Figma. The demonstration of a seamless workflow from Figma to Drupal, including the ability for updates in Figma to be reflected in Drupal, was met with thunderous applause. This is made possible through an innovative process where a new Canvas component is created with a YML file, and AI, through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), connects this to Figma, pulling the design into the new component. This will dramatically streamline the design and development process, fostering closer collaboration between designers and developers.
The Drupal AI Initiative: Smart, Context-Aware Content Creation
Artificial intelligence was a dominant theme at DrupalCon Vienna, and the Drupal AI Initiative is at the forefront of this movement. The integration of AI into Drupal is not about replacing human creativity but augmenting it, providing powerful tools to create better content, faster.
Drupal Canvas is a prime example of this in action. The Canvas template agent can leverage AI to build entire landing pages, assembling various components into a cohesive and visually appealing page that is ready for review and publishing. This will be a game-changer for marketers and content creators, allowing them to rapidly prototype and launch new campaigns.
Another key innovation is the Context Control Center, a centralized hub within the Drupal UI that provides all AI agents on the site with access to brand guidelines, messaging, and other critical information. This ensures that all AI-generated content is accurate, on-brand, and consistent with the overall communication strategy.
The Road Ahead: Drupal CMS 2.0 and Smart Orchestration
The future of Drupal is bright, with the next major version, Drupal CMS 2.0, scheduled for release in January 2026. This release will be a significant milestone, with Drupal Canvas included out of the box, making the new visual site-building tools a core part of the Drupal experience.
Beyond the core CMS, Drupal is also expanding its capabilities in orchestration, both within and outside of your Drupal website. The powerful but complex ECA (Events, Conditions, Actions) module, which currently ships with Drupal CMS, is being rebuilt from the ground up to be more user-friendly. This new smart Orchestration functionality will make it easier to automate workflows and processes within Drupal.
Furthermore, a new Orchestration module is being introduced to facilitate integrations with external systems, similar to tools like Activepieces. This will make it easier than ever to connect Drupal to other applications and services, creating a truly integrated digital experience platform.
Humanity at the Heart of the Open Web
Amidst all the talk of AI and automation, a powerful and reassuring theme emerged from DrupalCon Vienna: the enduring importance of human site builders and technical professionals. The message was clear that in a world increasingly dominated by AI, human expertise, creativity, and critical thinking will be more valuable than ever.
The Drupal community has always been the driving force behind the platform's innovation, and this will continue to be the case. It is the community that is shaping the roadmap, ensuring that Drupal remains a powerful, flexible, and open platform that empowers everyone to create amazing digital experiences on the open web.
The energy and passion on display at DrupalCon Vienna 2025 were a testament to the strength and vitality of the Drupal community. The future of Drupal is not just about new features and technologies; it's about the people who are building it, using it, and pushing the boundaries of what is possible on the open web. The road ahead is exciting, and there has never been a better time to be a part of the Drupal journey.
Web Technologist, Drupal Builder & Open Source Advocate Acquia