Drupal Starshot: Revolutionizing website building for non-developers

What is Drupal Starshot?

Drupal Starshot will be launched at the end of 2024 and is developed to make the powerful Drupal platform more accessible to a wider audience. The goal is to provide users with a streamlined, out-of-the-box experience for quickly setting up advanced websites. The in-depth technical expertise that Drupal often requires will not be necessary with Starshot.

What is the difference with the existing Drupal?

Unlike traditional Drupal Core, which is mainly aimed at users with extensive technical knowledge who prefer to build their solutions from the ground up, Drupal Starshot also targets non-developers.

When you get started with Drupal, you first download the (open-source) core of the Drupal CMS. You can then expand the CMS functionality according to your own wishes by downloading and installing modules. With more than 50,000 modules available to install and download, it sometimes takes a while to find the most suitable one.

Drupal now wants to fix that with Starshot, which will offer a ready-made installation package that includes the most commonly used modules and their configuration. This is obviously a lot more user-friendly: as an inexperienced Drupal user you can get started faster. Drupal Starshot is not an alternative version of Drupal, it is more of a quickstart package.

What features will Drupal Starshot have?

At the time of writing, it is not entirely clear which functionalities and modules will be included in the Starshot package. The official announcement already mentions the following features:

A modern “next generation” page builder
Project browser + Recipes. Drupal Recipes are pre-built sets of modules, configurations and content that make it easier to build a website. Everything you need for a specific function is included in one package.
Automatic updates
Popular modules from the community.
Easy configuration
Sample content

Is Drupal Starshot something for me?

Are you a professional user? Then Drupal Starshot may not rock your world. After all, it is mainly aimed at lowering the threshold for people with little Drupal experience. You could say that Drupal mainly wants to compete with WordPress, which has the reputation of being more accessible to inexperienced developers. But for a daily Drupal user – a webmaster, for example – Starshot will not offer functionalities that aren’t already in the current Drupal installation.

Our Drupal expert about Drupal Starshot

“For years, Drupal was the leader in the CMS field”, says Maarten Heip, Drupal team lead at iO.

“But it now has to settle for a place in the pack. It stands alongside players like WordPress, Sitecore and AEM. Dries Buytaert's words lead us to believe that Starshot is mainly focused on making website building easier by offering more out-of-the-box functionalities. This strategy will undeniably attract new users and strengthen the existing Drupal community. It seems to be a valuable addition, especially for less experienced users. Will Drupal immediately become top of mind again? No, I don’t think so. But Starshot is a very important step in the right direction.”

Read our expert's full opinion piece about Drupal Starshot

The future of Drupal: interview with Dries Buytaert

In April 2023, iO had the opportunity to interview Belgian Drupal founder Dries Buytaert. His future vision for Drupal was discussed in detail. You can re-watch the entire interview here.

Conclusion

Drupal Starshot promises to be a major step forward in making the Drupal CMS more accessible, especially for users without extensive technical knowledge. With ready-made installation packages, it significantly lowers the entry barrier and accelerates the development of advanced websites.

Although some professionals are critical of the need and management of this new initiative, the added value is clear: Drupal Starshot will attract new users and strengthen the community. It seems to be a valuable addition, especially for new and less experienced users. For Drupal it will be the ideal way to compete with user-friendly platforms such as WordPress.

Still have questions? Please feel free to contact our Drupal expert Maarten Heip using the form below.

PS Are you a Drupal user? Then this is a good time to check whether your Drupal is already running on the latest version. Read all about smoothly upgrading to the latest version of Drupal here.

Image source: drupal.org