The Drupal content management system (CMS) is one of the world’s most prevalent website development platforms. Favored by business leaders and open source practitioners worldwide, Drupal delivers a wide range of capabilities, features, and benefits that make it easy to build and maintain almost any website. 

With its renowned flexibility, scalability, and security, it’s not surprising that about one in eight enterprise websites run on the Drupal platform. That includes an impressive list of organizations, including Citibank, IBM, Fuji Film, Nasdaq, Pfizer, Princeton University, Tesla, and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

Drupal’s latest update, Drupal 11, expands on the platform’s well-loved capabilities and continues to make it the CMS of choice for ambitious site builders. 

Before we walk you through how to implement or upgrade it, let’s reinforce why so many people view Drupal as an essential part of their business strategy.  

Why Site Builders Choose Drupal

As an open source project, Drupal delivers benefits that other CMSs struggle to replicate. Let’s cover a few to get you started. 

As one of the most composable CMSs in the world, Drupal gives developers a ton of flexibility. Also, with Drupal, marketers can deliver optimized digital experiences without having to wait for developers to assist them. And with 50,000+ integrations, Drupal gives site builders complete freedom to customize their sites and content precisely how they want it. On top of that, Drupal delivers world-class performance, scalability, security, and accessibility.

So whether you're a developer, marketer, or business leader, there is a long list of reasons why you would consider the Drupal platform above all others.

How to Get Started with Drupal 11

If you’re new to Drupal and looking to get started with Drupal 11, the process is fairly easy to follow. Remember that installing and running Drupal is completely free. This includes the 50,000+ modules available to extend site functionality and the 2,500+ themes used to modify site appearance. 

Upgrading to Drupal 11

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For many of you who already use a previous version of Drupal, the new release may require a site migration or an upgrade. There are also new technical requirements that help support long-term stability and pave the way for further innovation, including: 

• MySQL/Percona 8.0
• MariaDB 10.6
• SQLite 3.45
• PostgreSQL 16
• PHP 8.3
• Composer 2.7.0

Drupal 11 requires PHP 8.3, an upgrade that helps improve security, performance, and supportability for your sites regardless of Drupal version. Since older versions of PHP are not supported by Drupal 11, you’ll need to ensure your code is PHP 8.3 compatible now. But, a big upside here is that PHP 8.3 is much faster than PHP 8.1 and 8.2.