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9 Standout Hospital Web Development Examples & Expert Tips

Allison Manley
Allison Manley

Your hospital web development is vital to modern patient care in the digital age.

With 89% of patients in the U.S. Googling their health symptoms before going to the doctor, your hospital website is essential to serving your community’s needs and providing accurate, trustworthy information.

Your website serves as a virtual front door for patients and potential visitors, providing them with essential information about the hospital’s services, specialties, and facilities. A user-friendly structure and design instills credibility and enhances the patient experience by allowing easy access to critical details, such as appointment scheduling, contact information, and directions. 

To develop your website effectively and ensure it supports your community, we’ve created this guide, which covers: 

Why Medical Website Development Matters

Before someone goes to the doctor, they’ll likely browse through a couple of physicians, make sure they’re in their healthcare network, scroll through times for an appointment— and do it all online.

People also turn to your website to answer medical queries, get updated on recent healthcare news, donate to your institution, and access an online health portal where they can update appointments and pay bills. A well-developed site helps to:

  • Craft a recognizable, highly reputable brand. If your hospital website doesn’t exist or contains outdated resources, it’s more than likely that people will take one look at it and deem your institution unreliable.
  • Differentiate yourself from other hospitals. A well-designed website communicates your commitment to patient-centered care, innovation, and technology, which can set you apart from competitors.
  • Build customer loyalty. To build customer/patient loyalty, your website needs to establish itself as a reliable medical web resource so that individuals can use it to make appointments, contact doctors, and pay bills.
  • Offer 24-hour patient communication and information. Your website provides patients with important information and resources outside of normal office hours. 
  • Simplify marketing for hospital events and needs. Use your website to promote hospital events, streamline donation appeals, and attract more patients.

While it may feel daunting to get started with hospital web development, it’s a worthwhile investment. Improving your online presence is the first step toward attracting and retaining more patients.

Features to Include in Your Hospital Website

Whether someone is coming in for a quick check-up or a visit to the ER, your hospital website is an integral part of their journey. To ensure it serves your community to the best of its ability, your website needs these specific site features: 

  • Simple navigation and menus
  • A list of services your hospital provides
  • Appointment booking tools
  • Contact details
  • Interactive advanced search functionality
  • Doctor/team information
  • AI-powered chatbots to answer patient questions and personalize the visitor experience
  • A secure, PCI-compliant online payment portal 
  • Blog/news/press releases about your hospital
  • Description of departments
  • Medical advice
  • Feedback forms (including surveys and polls) 
  • Hospital directions and parking information
  • Telemedicine functionality (such as patient portal login pages or scheduling resources)
  • Mobile-responsive design

Use these features as a checklist to ensure your website is a comprehensive resource for your patients, staff, and community members.

Download our free eBook to learn how to make your hospital website last

Top Hospital Web Development Examples and Best Practices

The best way to determine if your hospital website is up to par is to look at other successful sites. Review these hospital website examples to inspire your web development efforts:

  1. Simple navigation: Global Brain Health Institute
  2. Clear CTAs: Mayo Clinic
  3. Patient-focused design: UCSF Department of Surgery
  4. Consistent, bold branding: Cleveland Clinic
  5. Accessibility: Mount Sinai
  6. Inclusivity: Northwestern Medicine
  7. Mobile-friendliness: Johns Hopkins Medicine
  8. Accurate, updated information: Yale New Haven Hospital
  9. Streamlined user experience: Colorado Health Foundation
This screenshot of the Global Brain Health Institute’s fellowship directory stands out for its simple hospital web development.

The Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), an organization dedicated to protecting the world from brain disease and other health threats, wanted to ensure that visitors could easily navigate their site and locate different programs, services, and projects. 

As a result, they worked with Kanopi to add a navigation bar that is logically organized and prominently placed throughout the website, so users can quickly find what they need. The site also features a fellowship directory that includes a search bar and filters. This is useful for medical students interested in pursuing a fellowship in a particular specialty, as well as for patients who want to learn more about the expertise of the hospital’s staff.

Why simple navigation is essential for hospital websites: As soon as someone lands on your hospital website, they should be able to find the content or service they seek. To ensure your site is easily navigable, consider mapping out the patient journey to better understand how people get to your site and what they do once they get there.

2. Clear CTAs: Mayo Clinic

This screenshot of the Mayo Clinic’s homepage shows how to effectively incorporates CTAs into hospital web development.

The Mayo Clinic is a nonprofit academic medical center, known for its expertise in many areas of medicine and for providing high-quality care to patients. Their homepage features multiple calls to action (CTAs) that encourage visitors to schedule an appointment, donate, or learn more about a particular medical condition or procedure. 

By including clear CTAs on their website, the Mayo Clinic helps visitors understand what medical services they provide, what treatments are available, and how to seek help if they need it.

Why clear calls to action matter for hospital websites: Carefully-placed CTAs let website visitors know exactly where and how to complete their intended action. As you create your own, consider the specific actions that you want visitors to take. Then, use clear and concise language to convey your purpose. For example, you might say “Schedule an Appointment Today” or “Learn More about Our Cancer Center.”

3. Patient-focused design: UCSF Department of Surgery

The UCSF Department of Surgery website homepage

The Department of Surgery at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a leading surgical department with a rich history of research and scientific advancements. UCSF worked with Kanopi to create a positive, patient-focused website experience. We evaluated which site elements matter the most to users using deep discovery work and prototypes. 

As a result, we helped enhance this website with a variety of user-friendly fixes, including:

  • Simple domain access with consistency across topics and departments
  • Human-led imagery of UCSF doctors and videos highlighting the patient experience
  • A mobile-first approach with a responsive design

Why patient-focused design is essential for hospitals: Your patients are the heart and soul of your hospital, and appealing to their needs will help you maintain high audience engagement. Patients should feel welcomed and comfortable using your website and signing up for your services. A friendly, patient-focused design helps foster a sense of community. 

4. Consistent, bold branding: Cleveland Clinic

As seen in this screenshot of the Cleveland Clinic’s homepage, it’s important to use consistent, bold branding in hospital web development.

Cleveland Clinic is one of the top multispeciality academic medical centers in the country. To establish a strong, recognizable brand and reinforce their reputation, they included bold, eye-catching colors throughout their website.

Notice how all of the elements on their homepage are blue and green. When patients come across these colors in other mediums and materials, they’ll likely associate them with Cleveland Clinic. 

Why consistency and bold branding is important for hospital websites: Consistent branding builds trust between patients and your hospital, which can be especially important in the healthcare industry where patients often have significant concerns about their health and well-being.

Adding color is a popular medical website design trend, with vivid and deep colors being sported on many successful hospital websites. Consider your site’s color palette before diving into web development to make sure your website branding is consistent throughout its pages.

5. Accessibility: Mount Sinai

This screenshot of Mount Sinai’s homepage contains an accessibility tool, an important element of hospital web development.

Mount Sinai’s healthcare system prides itself on providing a wide range of services to diverse populations, including medical education, research, and patient care. To meet their patients’ varied needs, they prioritized creating an accessible website. 

The accessibility tool in the bottom footer allows visitors to use a screen reader, navigate using their keyboards, and change the color contrast, if needed. 

Why accessible design matters for hospital websites: Having an inaccessible hospital website will not only turn away those who might need your services the most but paints your entire establishment in a negative light. Because of the industry that you’re in, maintaining full compliance with the ADA and WCAG is essential. You want your entire community to feel accepted and at ease with your services, especially when it concerns medical care.

6. Inclusivity: Northwestern Medicine

This is a screenshot of Northwestern Medicine’s website, which stands out for its inclusive hospital web development.

Northwestern Medicine has a number of hospitals, all of which are committed to providing inclusive care to patients of all backgrounds and demographics. Maintaining an inclusive website is important for Northwestern Medicine, as it allows them to better connect with their patients and provide them with the resources and care they need. 

Their Patients and Visitors page is extremely comprehensive, with CTAs that address a wide variety of concerns and questions. 

Why inclusivity is important for hospital websites: Your hospital website content needs to represent the voice of all of your users, whether it’s patients, frontline workers, researchers, or caregivers.

7. Mobile-friendliness: Johns Hopkins Medicine

This is a screenshot of Johns Hopkins’ website homepage, which leverages mobile-friendly hospital web development.

Johns Hopkins Medicine is known for its world-class medical facilities, including hospitals, clinics, and research centers. As a leading healthcare provider, they needed to keep up with changes in technology by creating a mobile-friendly website. 

Their mobile-responsive site design allows patients to schedule appointments, access medical information, and communicate with healthcare providers, regardless of the device they’re using. 

Why mobile-friendliness matters for hospital websites: With over 60% of the global internet population using a mobile device to access the internet, your hospital web design must work on all different screen sizes. For patients or families already in the hospital or waiting room, the ability to quickly look something up on their phone or tablet is critical. 

Most content management systems (CMS) can create a mobile-responsive site automatically. However, there are some easy ways you can ensure your site’s responsiveness. For instance, use large buttons, a vertical layout, and avoid large chunks of text.

8. Accurate, updated information: Yale New Haven Hospital

This screenshot of Yale New Haven Hospital’s homepage features emergency room wait times, an important aspect of hospital web development.

Yale New Haven Hospital provides a wide range of medical services to its local community. As with any hospital, their website needs to provide accurate and reliable information about their services, facilities, and medical personnel. That way, patients can make informed decisions about their care. 

Perhaps most notably, Yale New Haven’s homepage features emergency room wait times, informing patients where to seek care and what to expect when they arrive. 

Why accurate and updated information is essential for hospital websites: When it comes to healthcare, accuracy is non-negotiable. It’s critical that your web content is consistently updated and provides the most high-quality information available. 

9. Streamlined user experience: Colorado Health Foundation

The CHF homepage

The Colorado Health Foundation (CHF) is a statewide organization that aims to improve the health and well-being of all Colorado residents. The CHF partnered with Kanopi to clean up their site’s navigation and streamline the user experience. 

Based on our research and expertise, our developers instituted impactful changes. We condensed the main menu to a cleaner version focused on the items that matter most to users. We also improved the visitor journey by:

  • Ensuring consistent page layout
  • Incorporating translation support
  • Adding accordions to streamline page design with collapsable text
  • Building a data display to foster accountability for the organization’s racial and health equity goals
  • Enhancing accessibility with clearer fonts, tab navigation, and meaningful links

Why a streamlined user experience matters for hospitals: Patients visiting your hospital’s website may be rushed or anxious. A simplified user experience connects them with the information or resources they need quickly and seamlessly. 

Tips for Hospital Website Compliance

Your hospital website will likely have multiple services that collect and store patient data, whether that includes a health portal, appointment tool, or bill payment.

With this in mind, your hospital web development practices must follow regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH):

  • HIPAA is an act created by the American government to protect patient data such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers, and medical records.
  • HITECH extends HIPAA requirements to bring additional benefits and protection to patients. This regulation establishes that patients should always have access to their health information online, and if hospitals do have a data violation, patients should be notified immediately. Depending on the seriousness of the data breach, your hospital may also incur various penalties and fees.

To ensure your website and software solutions not only comply with HIPAA and the HITECH Act but go above and beyond to ensure data protection, you need the following safeguards:

  • Tech safeguards include encryption software, data backups, and firewalls. Assess the state of your current healthcare cybersecurity system to ensure you have the proper safeguards in place.
  • Physical safeguards include only granting access to material records or electronic devices with the aforementioned data after proper authorization.
  • Administrative safeguards include the guidelines your hospital sets up to ensure that internal procedures comply with HIPAA.

Once these safety nets are in place, add a privacy policy statement to your website explaining your commitment to HIPAA and HITECH compliance. Publicizing this statement will help you build trust with current and prospective patients.  

How to Maintain Your Hospital Website

Hospital website maintenance is crucial to ensure your site remains a high-performing, accessible, and convenient resource for your audience. Follow these best practices to future-proof and maintain your website over time.

Adopt a continuous improvement approach

Web Design Process Comparison

Traditional Waterfall Process

Strategy
Design
Development
Launch

Drawbacks

Rigid & Less FlexibleChanges are difficult and expensive once development begins.

Costly & Time-ConsumingLarge upfront investment with lengthy timelines.

Quickly OutdatedWebsite can become stale shortly after launch.

Growth-Driven Design Cycle

Benefits

Save Time & MoneySmaller initial investment with continuous improvements.

Always Fresh & RelevantContinuous optimization prevents site staleness.

Data-Driven DecisionsInformed improvements based on real user behavior.

Traditional website design and development takes a linear approach, with a clear pathway from strategy to implementation. However, a growth-driven, continuous improvement approach involves an ongoing, iterative process of:

  • Strategizing new website innovations
  • Implementing website changes to test your hypotheses
  • Tracking results and adjusting your approach based on feedback 

This perspective pushes you to constantly update your website based on evolving best practices. Plus, you can avoid major site overhauls, which can cost your organization time and money.

Update your website according to accessibility innovations

New accessibility innovations are released constantly, helping to improve the online experience for users with temporary or permanent disabilities. Intelligent eyewear, a hands-free mouse, and AI-powered assistants are just a few of the exciting innovations we’re seeing this year.

Your website maintenance process should include accessibility updates to ensure your site stays usable and functional for all users. Take the time to adjust to the impacts of the following potential changes: 

  • New assistive technology. Innovations in screen reader technology, AI assistants, assistive voice solutions, and other accessible technologies change how individuals interact with your web content. Make sure your website is structured properly, with clear navigation and heading structures, so it’s compatible with all assistive technology. 
  • Accessibility testing techniques. Alongside updates to assistive technology itself, the way web designers can test sites for accessibility constantly evolves as well. Stay up to date on the best automated testing tools available as well as techniques for manually assessing your site. Resources like Kanopi’s guide to accessibility testing can be a huge help because our developers use these tools every day to ensure the sites we build or refresh are completely accessible and compatible with assistive technologies. 
  • Changes to legal requirements. Laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Section 508 Amendment to the Rehabilitation Act govern web accessibility in the United States. Keep this legislation in mind as you refresh your website for accessibility. If you want to expand into new markets in other countries, be aware of their accessibility legislation to remain compliant. 

Here at Kanopi, we take a holistic approach to web accessibility, learning about your website’s visitors and their unique accessibility needs to build a strategy that works best for your organization. Learn more about our approach in this short video:

Conduct technical fixes

The technical elements of your hospital website play a major role in your users’ online experience. Technical issues can slow down your website and leave it vulnerable to security breaches. 

To keep your website in top shape, prioritize fixing the following technical issues: 

  • Broken links. Broken links can hurt your SEO performance and create a negative user experience. Use an automated tool like Semrush or Google Search Console to identify and correct broken links with mass updates. 
  • Security risks. Run core updates for your CMS and plugins or modules, encrypt sensitive data, require strong passwords for CMS users, and enable two-factor website authentication. In addition, host regular security training sessions with your team to ensure everyone is up to date with the latest security risks and best practices. 
  • Slow page loading speed. Measure page load speed using a free tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights or Lighthouse. Common performance issues include large image files, unused JavaScript or CSS, and large network payloads. 

Set up recurring technical reports to get ongoing updates about your site’s health. Continuously monitoring your site and fixing performance issues will help you avoid smaller problems snowballing into major complications down the line. 

Update your content

Your website’s content equips your audience with the crucial medical information they need to make informed decisions about their health. Updated, accurate content helps raise your hospital’s authority level and gives more credibility to your institution. 

In your website maintenance process, make the following content updates: 

  • SEO updates. Use SEO tools like Ahrefs or Moz to keep an eye on your search engine rankings. If any of your website’s most important pages, like high-value blog posts or your homepage, start slipping in the rankings, make a plan to refresh the content to enhance its SEO appeal. For example, you could better incorporate the main keyword, add more engaging visual elements, or refresh the page with updated health information. 
  • Audience shifts. Your hospital’s core audience and their content preferences may change over time. New people could move into your coverage area with new online medical needs. Or, audience members may begin expressing interest in different blog post topics than what you normally cover. Pay attention to metrics like blog post engagement rates, time spent on each page, and audience demographics to ensure your content aligns with your audience’s interests and needs. 
  • Interactive content additions. Interactive content is on an upward trajectory right now as more consumers seek out these engaging online elements. Interactive content can also lead to 2x the conversion rate of passive (or static) content. Find opportunities to incorporate this content into your hospital website, whether through online health assessments, quizzes, maps, surveys, or polls. 

These content updates and the website maintenance process in general are most successful when working with a dedicated web development partner that has expertise and experience in maintaining websites like yours. Read on for an inside look at how the Kanopi team approaches hospital web development support. 

How Kanopi’s Hospital Web Development Services Can Help

Partner with a website support and development agency to ensure you’re doing everything possible to improve your hospital website.

Kanopi is a top partner for hospitals with a continuous improvement team that has helped develop over 150 active sites. No matter what stage your hospital website is at, our team can conduct a full website redesign project or build it from scratch. 

Here are our services:

  • Content management system support tailored to user needs—whether you use Drupal or WordPress as a CMS, we have experts who can customize each platform to align with your organization’s needs and branding.
  • Custom module/plugin development—if you can’t find the right tool to perform a specific action, our coding team can create it.
  • WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility standards to ensure that anyone can access and engage with your healthcare services as needed.
  • Custom integrations for an online health portal or other solutions that can expand your hospital website’s capabilities.
  • Responsive, mobile-first design because we know that your online hospital services should be accessible from any device, anywhere.
  • Technical SEO strategy and implementation so that if anyone looks up your hospital’s name, a specific doctor, or a program, your hospital website is the first option on the search results page.

Even after your optimized site is officially launched, we will continue working alongside your hospital to create a website growth plan. This ensures that your site is sustainable for as long as possible and will support your hospital as it evolves.

Check out our healthcare web development work to see our guidance and expertise in action.  

Screengrab of the on-demand webinar from Tim Tufts about the UCSF Department of Surgery project

Want to dig deeper into how Kanopi works with healthcare clients? To learn about how UCSF Department of Surgery and Kanopi worked together, check out our webinar “It Takes a Village: Managing a Large Community in a Website Redesign.”

Additional Resources

For more information on website development, check out these resources: 

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The Algolia website home page

Algolia for Search

Nikane Mallea
Nikane Mallea Delivery Manager

Algolia is a powerful search and discovery API for creating fast and relevant search experiences. Designed to optimize user interaction, Algolia enables teams to build and refine custom search functionalities. It offers features like instant search, autocomplete, faceted search, and typo tolerance, ensuring users find what they need quickly and accurately.

Why we like (and use) Algolia

There several compelling reasons why we use Algolia here at Kanopi:

Speed & performance. Algolia provides lightning-fast search capabilities, enhancing the user experience on our websites.

  • Developer’s perspective: Offloading the search functionality to Algolia instead of relying on the main site database significantly speeds up overall site performance. By handling search queries separately, the primary database experiences reduced load and faster response times, leading to a smoother and more efficient user experience.

Relevance. The advanced search algorithms ensure highly relevant search results, improving user satisfaction and engagement.

Query suggestions. Algolia’s query suggestions feature provides users with real-time search suggestions as they type, enhancing the search experience by predicting and displaying relevant queries. Also, developers or editors can easily rank, add and/or remove query suggestions as needed, ensuring the search interface remains intuitive and relevant.

Customization. Algolia’s flexible API allows us to tailor search functionalities to meet specific client needs and preferences.

  • Developer’s perspective: Being able to easily customize the frontend to meet design and client expectations is a wonderful thing! Algolia’s ease of customization stands out, thanks to its extensive documentation and examples for adding search functionalities to a site.
  • Algolia covers all popular JavaScript frameworks, such as React, Vue, Angular, as well as iOS, Android, and vanilla JavaScript. This comprehensive support empowers frontend developers to effortlessly integrate and customize search interfaces to meet specific client requirements.

Scalability. As our clients grow, Algolia scales effortlessly, handling increasing volumes of data and traffic without compromising on performance.

Ease of integration. Algolia integrates seamlessly with various platforms and technologies, including Drupal, making it a perfect fit for our technical stack.

We like Algolia so much, we’re parters with them.

How we use Algolia

We use Algolia to enhance the search capabilities on our clients’ websites. Here’s a brief overview of our approach:

Search implementation. We integrate Algolia’s search API into the client’s CMS, customizing the search interface to match the website’s design and user needs.

  • Developer’s perspective: The Search API Algolia module for Drupal allows us to easily set up content for Algolia to build a search index using a method familiar to anyone who’s ever worked with the Drupal Search API. 

However, Developers aren’t limited to this one Drupal module for sending data to Algolia. There are actually many ways to push and pull data to Algolia’s service. Developers can also create custom modules to meet specific client search needs if the Search API module doesn’t meet their requirements. The flexibility with which Algolia ingests data enables developers to curate the data before passing it to Algolia, ensuring a tailored and optimized search experience.

Indexing content. We set up and configure indexing rules to ensure all relevant content is searchable. This includes real-time indexing for dynamic content updates.

  • Developer’s perspective: When using the Drupal Algolia Search API module, any new, updated, or deleted content is immediately pushed to Algolia and can be searched almost instantly. This seamless integration makes indexing both new and existing content easy and efficient.

Search optimization. We fine-tune Algolia’s search settings to prioritize the most relevant results and ensure a seamless user experience.

Analytics and refinement. Using Algolia’s built-in analytics, we can continuously monitor search performance and user behavior, making data-driven adjustments to enhance search accuracy and effectiveness.

Using one of our clients — the Exploratorium — as an example, here are images showing examples of Exploratorium’s Algolia Analytics metrics:

A chart showing the Algolia interface
Several charts demonstrating Algolia's analytics interface


Examples of Algolia in action with Exploratorium

Renowned San Francisco public learning laboratory the Exploratorium needed to revamp their search experience. We used Algolia to create an intuitive, responsive search interface that caters to diverse visitor needs. The improved search functionality has significantly boosted user engagement, search relevancy, and satisfaction. (See the full case study for Exploratorium here.)

Specifically, we used Algolia’s Autocomplete and InstantSearch.js UI libraries:

Example of Algolia Autocomplete library

We integrated the Autocomplete library into the header, providing users with real-time suggestions as they type into the input field. This autocomplete feature predicts and displays full terms or results, forming the core of the autocomplete experience.

An example of Algolia's autocomplete library using the back-end of the Exploratorium website while searching for the term "eclipse"

Example of Algolia InstantSearch.js

InstantSearch.js provides faceted search results.

A screengrab of the back-end of the Exploratorium website showing the InstantSearch interface

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Hands on a keyboard

Six Bug Reporting Best Practices for Manual Quality Assurance Engineers

Kat Smith
Kathleen Smith

Manual quality assurance (QA) in web development is the process of manually checking a website or application to identify bugs, usability issues, and design inconsistencies. Typically performed by QA specialists or developers, it ensures a seamless user experience by catching issues that automated tests might miss. In other words, it’s essential to delivering a fully functioning website that works as intended.

However, identifying bugs is only part of the QA job — reporting them effectively is just as critical.

 A well-written bug report helps developers understand the issue quickly, saves time, and improves the chances of a fast and accurate fix. In this post, we’ll look at six key characteristics of an actionable bug report.

1. Clear, Descriptive Titles (Think “Obvious” but Helpful)

First impressions matter, and your bug title is the first thing your team will see — so make it count! A good title conveys exactly what the issue is by identifying the specific component, page, or feature affected, along with a concise summary of the problem.

Consistency is key — avoid interchanging terminology (e.g., “Taxonomy” vs. “Taxonomy Term,” which may refer to entirely different things) and stick to the naming conventions established in your CMS or project.

Example Title:
“‘Cute Puppy Photo Request’ form can be submitted even when required fields are blank.”

2. Explain How to Reproduce the Issue

Reproducibility is the cornerstone of bug resolution. If developers can’t replicate the issue, they’ll (rightfully) struggle to understand what QA is reporting.

Provide clear, step-by-step instructions in the exact order you performed them. Don’t skip seemingly trivial details, as these can often be critical in reproducing the problem accurately.

Example Steps to Reproduce:

  1. As an anonymous user, navigate to [relevant URL here]
  2. Verify that the “Cute Puppy Photo Request” form is visible
  3. Leave all required fields blank
  4. Click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the form
  5. Note that the form is successfully submitted without validation errors

3. Include Relevant Screenshots or Screen Recordings

Visual aids like screenshots or videos provide context and make it much easier for developers to understand visually complex issues, such as alignment problems or animation glitches. Tools like Scrnli, native OS features, or browser extensions can help capture these details.

For extra impact, consider providing a voiceover for your recordings. There’s nothing like softly narrating QA best practices to soothe developers while they debug.

Pro tip: Include screenshots for any ticket a QA professional touches. Not only does this serve as a handy reference for future troubleshooting, but it can also pinpoint exactly which merge introduced a new bug.

4. Describe the Expected vs. Actual Results

Clearly outlining both the expected and actual outcomes helps distinguish a genuine bug from a feature or misunderstanding. Whether it’s a quick one-liner (“error should not appear”) or a more detailed explanation involving user experience considerations, this context is invaluable.

Example:

  • Expected Result: After clicking “Submit,” the user should see an error message if the required fields are not filled out.

Actual Result: After clicking “Submit,” the user can submit the form without completing the required fields, and no error message is displayed.

5. Specify the Environment and Configuration

Some bugs occur only in specific environments (we’re looking at you, Safari). Always include details about the browser, OS, device, and CMS or app version where the issue was encountered. This helps prioritize fixes and ensures issues can be replicated under the same conditions.

Example:

  • Browser: Chrome v95.0
  • OS: Windows 10 Pro
  • Device: Desktop
  • Screen Resolution: 1920×1080
  • CMS Version: WordPress 6.5

6. Reference Related Bugs or Previous Fixes

Many bugs are related to previous issues or fixes. If something feels familiar, take the time to dig into the backlog or related tickets—it might save hours of investigation. Mentioning related bugs, project-specific issues, or core bugs provides helpful context for developers and ensures nothing falls through the cracks.

Example:
“This issue appears to have resurfaced after the ‘Cute Puppy Forms’ module update in ticket #12345.”

Final Thoughts

Effective bug reporting is one of the most valuable skills a QA engineer can bring to a project. Clear, detailed, and organized reports enable developers to address issues quickly, ensuring a better end product. And let’s be honest — developers will secretly thank you for it (even if they never say it out loud).

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Kanopi Team

Choosing a Content Management System: Proprietary vs. Open Source

Grant Proulx
Grant Proulx Web Copywriter

Let’s say your organization needs a new website. You meet with your team to discuss the best way forward. Some are touting the benefits of an open-source content management system (CMS) like Drupal or WordPress. Meanwhile, others argue that a proprietary system is the right way to go. But you’re the one who has to make the final call. So, which one will it be? In this post, we’ll look at open source vs. proprietary CMS and what each one has to offer.

If you know anything about us, you already know that we strongly prefer open source for a long list of reasons. We’ll get into those reasons below, but we’ll also give proprietary systems a fair shake — promise. Hopefully, the more you know about each option, it will be clear why we’ve built our organization around open source right from day one.

What is a proprietary CMS?

A proprietary CMS is a software platform owned and controlled by a company. Its users need to purchase licenses or subscriptions for access and updates. It typically offers limited customization compared to open-source CMS, with restricted access to the source code.

Organizations that choose the proprietary route usually cite a few main reasons:

  • Dedicated Support: Proprietary CMS platforms typically have dedicated customer support, offering immediate help with technical issues, bugs, and updates.
  • (Perceived) Security: With a closed-source environment, clients sometimes have the perception that proprietary CMS platforms have fewer vulnerabilities, since the code is not accessible to the public. The vendor manages security updates and patches. (Below, I’ll get into why this is more about perception than reality.)
  • Tailored Solutions: Proprietary CMS vendors may offer customized solutions, features, or integrations to meet specific business needs within a particular industry.
  • Legacy: In many cases, the client is already deeply invested in other proprietary platforms/software from a provider (their suite of office applications for example), so they’ll also use their CMS for the sake of convenience and continuity. There’s a pretty large company whose name starts with ‘M’ that relies heavily on this in their sales pitch.

These benefits, however, often come with trade-offs, such as higher costs and limited flexibility compared to open-source CMS options.

So, what about open source?

Open-source CMS platforms like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal account for a majority of websites on the internet. WordPress alone powers approximately 62.7% of all sites. They’re also usually more cost-effective to maintain in the long run compared to proprietary CMS platforms for a number of reasons:

  • For Starters, They’re Free: Open-source platforms like WordPress and Drupal are free to use, eliminating the need for expensive licensing fees associated with proprietary software.
  • No Vendor Lock-In:  With a proprietary CMS, the vendor retains ownership of the code, limiting your control and flexibility. With an open-source CMS, clients own and control the code, meaning full customization and portability is yours. Using open-source software also means you’re not dependent on a single company for updates, support, or hosting. 
  • Flexibility and Customization: Drupal and WordPress offer extensive customization options with thousands of themes, plugins, and modules; users can tailor their websites to meet their needs without being locked into vendor restrictions.
  • Community Support: Open-source platforms have large, active communities of developers and users who contribute to forums, create plugins/modules, and more. This collective knowledge base can provide faster solutions and innovations.
  • Continuous Improvement: Open-source platforms are regularly updated with security patches, new features, and enhancements contributed by the community, making them more dynamic than proprietary software, which might have slower release cycles.
  • Ownership and Control Is All Yours: With open-source software, you have full ownership and control over your website, including the ability to host it anywhere and modify the underlying code. Proprietary systems may impose hosting restrictions and limit access to the source code.
  • Security and Transparency: Open-source platforms are generally considered to be more secure because the code is publicly available for scrutiny, allowing security experts to identify and patch vulnerabilities quickly. Proprietary systems may be more opaque, making it harder to spot and fix security issues. So while it’s true that many more people have access to open-source code, this results in greater platform security — despite what many proprietary system providers (and their sales teams) would like you to believe.
  • Scalability: Open-source platforms like Drupal are highly scalable, making them suitable for both small websites and large enterprise-level applications, whereas proprietary solutions may have limitations or require expensive upgrades to scale effectively.
  • Integration Capabilities: Drupal and WordPress are known for their ability to integrate with a wide range of third-party tools, APIs, and systems, providing more flexibility in building feature-rich websites — while proprietary platforms may restrict integrations or charge extra for them.
  • Innovation: Open-source platforms often lead in innovation, as developers from all over the world can contribute new ideas and functionalities, fostering a continuous flow of creativity and technical advancement.

It’s your call. 

So, returning to our opening paragraph scenario, it’s your call; you have proponents in your organization on each side of the coin. Which do you choose? Do you listen to those team members clamoring for a proprietary CMS and its benefits? Or do you choose the flexibility and efficiency of an open-source platform?

Not that we would openly encourage you to choose one over the other. Good heavens, no! However, if you should decide to go with an open-source CMS — specifically Drupal or WordPress — we have a little motto here at Kanopi: 

Never build alone.

Since 2010, we’ve been building websites that meet our clients’ unique needs, whether designing and developing from the ground up or enhancing existing sites with upgrades and CMS migrations. Our approach combines UX research, discovery, and visual design to create a user-friendly digital experience, followed by expert development to bring your vision to life. Even after launch, we provide ongoing support to ensure your site continues to perform at its best. With us as your partner, even the staunchest proprietary fans will be tipping their hats to you.

Have a look at some of our favorite Drupal and WordPress projects.

Categories
Drupal logo on a blue background with a circular pattern

Drupal 7 End of Life: A Guide to Next Steps

Allison Manley
Allison Manley

This post was last updated in September 2024 to incorporate information about the recent release of Drupal 11. 

Kanopi is a Drupal Certified Partner and can help with your migration needs.

Launched a decade ago, Drupal 7 (D7) has allowed many organizations, from airports to government agencies, hospitals, and more, to create engaging websites powered by over 40,000 modules and 2,500 themes. 

But as they say, all good things must come to an end. According to a Drupal PSA, Drupal 7 will reach its end of life in January 2025, and its farewell leaves many organizations considering their next steps.

D7’s end-of-life (EOL) was originally planned for November 2022, but with the impact of COVID-19 on so many website owners and their budgets, the Drupal maintainers decided to extend the timeline to 2023. Now, a final extension has been made, pushing the timeline again by two years.

Even with this extension, the impending EOL date has a lot of organizations that are dependent on Drupal 7 weighing their options. These organizations can either:

  • Stay on D7 using a long-term support provider 
  • Migrate to Drupal 11 (the most recent version)
  • Switch to a new CMS

Every website and organization is different. There’s no catch-all answer when it comes to deciding when and how to upgrade your Drupal system. However, it’s highly recommended that organizations still using Drupal 7 consider moving to Drupal 11. This gives you the greatest access to new features and functionality to ensure your website is at the top of its game. 

In this blog post, we’ll outline the pros and cons of each option and describe the process of switching to Drupal 11. 

Drupal 7 End of Life: Frequently Asked Questions

Drupal timeline featuring Drupal 11’s 2024 release, Drupal 7’s 2025 EOL, and Drupal 10’s 2026 EOL

What does Drupal end of life mean?

When software reaches its end-of-life date, it will no longer receive bug fixes or security updates from the Drupal community and security team. This also includes the modules that are used!

How long will Drupal 7 be supported?

Previously, Drupal 7’s end-of-life was scheduled for November 2023. In June of 2023, Drupal extended the deadline to January 5, 2025. After this time, the Drupal Security team will no longer provide support or Security Advisories for Drupal 7.

Is Drupal 7 still supported?

Yes. Drupal 7 will still be supported until January 5, 2025. Even though this version is a decade old, its end-of-life does not mean the end of your site. 

Once the community stops supporting Drupal 7 after EOL, a group of approved and vetted vendors can continue to provide security updates for Drupal 7 core and certain contrib modules under the Drupal 7 Vendor Extended Support program.

What is the difference between all Drupal versions?

Currently, Drupal 7, 10, and 11 are supported. Drupal 8 and 9 both reached their end of life and are no longer supported. Drupal 11 is the most recent version. 

When did Drupal 11 launch? 

Drupal 11 launched in August 2024. This version offers helpful new features, better workflows, and greater flexibility for website builders. 

What do you need to do to prepare to get out of Drupal 7?

If you’re ready to transition away from Drupal 7, you’ll need to ensure your team is aligned and ready to take on the next steps. To prepare for an upgrade, you should:

  • Conduct technical mapping. When picking new modules or new features, keep in mind that you’re planning for the future. Do you have a clear update path for when you upgrade to D11 (and beyond)? Check out Kanopi’s Drupal 7 to 10 migration guide for a full sequence of steps to follow (you’ll need to upgrade to Drupal 10.3 before launching a D11 migration). 
  • Conduct a content audit. A content audit helps determine what should stay and what should go on your site. This is especially helpful when it comes time to migrate to a new site. 
  • Identify stakeholders. You’ll likely have several members of your team involved in the steps needed to update your site. Make note of who will be responsible for what and how you’ll start the process. 
  • Determine your budget. Whether you migrate to D11 or move to an entirely new CMS, you’ll need to set a realistic budget to ensure you can complete the project.

Drupal 7 End of Life Options

To upgrade or not to upgrade. That is the question…

The path after Drupal 7 is not a one-size-fits-all process. You have several other paths to choose from regarding the next steps to take. Here are the options to consider:

1. Continue using Drupal 7

Your website won’t cease to exist after Drupal 7’s EOL date, so you can continue using the system for an extended period. This choice is recommended for organizations that need a bit more time to gather the resources and budget needed to switch to D11 or a new CMS.

Pros

  • Your modules will still continue functioning. 
  • Ongoing support and technical expertise from a partner like Kanopi can help support your site until you’re ready to migrate. 

Cons

  • There won’t be any security fixes. 
  • You may be on your own to fix any modules or integrations that stop working.
  • You may miss out on innovative new features.

2. Upgrade from Drupal 7 to 11

For organizations that are ready to upgrade their site and take advantage of new functionality and security features, migrating to Drupal 11 is the way to go.

Pros

  • The powerful migration module has many tools to help developers migrate even the most complex Drupal 7 website to Drupal 11.
  • If you’re already considering a website redesign, you can start fresh on Drupal 11 and have time to plan.

Cons

  • It could be costly, depending on the complexity of your site. An upgrade to Drupal 11 from Drupal 7 will require a developer to create a migration, meaning a brand new website needs to be built in Drupal 11. All content from your current Drupal 7 will be migrated to the new site or rebuilt.

3. Move to an entirely new CMS

This option only makes sense if you have the funds to carry out an extreme rebuild. But if your site is very simple (for example, a blog) and doesn’t require many features or functionality, moving your legacy Drupal 7 to a CMS like WordPress can be a very cost-effective solution.

Pros

  • Moving to a new CMS can be a cost- and time-effective solution if your site is simple.
  • You can use the transition as an opportunity to launch a full brand refresh.

Cons

  • If your site is more advanced, it can be costly and time-consuming to rebuild it on an entirely new platform.

To help decide which path to take, consider your organization’s:

  • Budget: If your D7 site is complex, do you have the funds needed to upgrade to D11 or move to a new CMS? 
  • Time constraints: Does your team have enough time to devote to a website rebuild? Will you have more or less free time in the coming months? 
  • Goals: Do you want to expand your website in the future to drive more conversions? Are you interested in modernizing your website or updating your brand? 

If you’re not ready to make a decision at this exact moment, some agencies and providers can keep your D7 website updated and move you to Drupal 7 long-term support.

You’ll have to rebuild eventually. But, by choosing a support package, you can take the time you need to make a strategic decision, as well as buy some time to allow funds to free up. 

Kanopi’s Drupal 7 End of Life and Support Package

At Kanopi, we’re here to help Drupal 7 users until you’re ready to make the jump. We offer solutions for organizations who decide to stay on Drupal 7 past its EOL and those ready to transition to Drupal 11. 

For those who decide to remain on Drupal 7 for the time being, there is some good news. When D7 reaches its end of life, Drupal users will not see any immediate difference from the front-end perspective, and neither will your site visitors! In the back-end of your Drupal site, the platform and modules will begin to display as “Unsupported,” but everything else will essentially continue to work as it had previously.

By choosing Kanopi as your long-term support provider, we patch and maximize the value of your Drupal 7 investment for as long as possible—with the lowest level of financial investment until you are ready to move to D11. 

Our Drupal 7 support services include:

  • A continuous improvement approach: Instead of large structural changes, we work on small incremental changes that support your budget. Our services include module and plugin upgrades, bug fixes and security patches, updating content types/views, and more.
  • A website growth plan: In addition to keeping your D7 site supported beyond EOL, we also work closely with you to future proof your site. We create a roadmap for exactly how you can increase conversions for your organization using your website
  • Support and security: Kanopi currently supports 150+ Drupal 7 domains. We work to keep their sites healthy until they’re ready for an upgrade.

If you’re interested in learning more about our D7 support plans, contact the Kanopi team here. We can help you determine the best path forward based on your goals. 

Transition to Drupal 11 with Kanopi

For most organizations, transitioning to Drupal 11 is the recommended path to getting the most value out of your website. Making the switch allows you to stay ahead of the curve and ensure your website takes advantage of the security tools and advanced features of D11. 

Upgrading your Drupal site from D7 to D11 is a more involved process than traditional upgrades because you’ll have to transfer all of your data to a new Drupal 11 site. Plus, before you can launch your Drupal 11 site, you must update to Drupal 10.3. As Drupal explains, “Sites running 10.2.x or earlier versions must first update to 10.3.0 or later prior to updating to Drupal 11, because all core updates added prior to 10.3.0 have been removed. If any modules or themes have been removed you may use the respective contributed project instead.” 

With that in mind, Kanopi’s Drupal 7 to 10 migration guide describes the steps you need to follow to upgrade your site, including:

  1. Audit your Drupal 7 site. Review all types of site functionality in this audit, including your modules, content types, paragraphs, etc. This can help you determine where you stand currently and if you should conduct any maintenance before upgrading your site.
  2. Identify necessary redirects to keep your SEO rankings. Identify top-performing content and determine whether you’ll need to implement a redirect to maintain SEO performance. 
  3. Create a backup site copy. This will serve as a migration source to ensure everything is in the right place. 
  4. Review hosting for technical requirements. Ensure your website host can support the minimum technical requirement of PHP 8.1. Also, review your host for performance elements such as speed, security, and reliability. 
  5. Migrate your site’s content. Determine which content types you’d like to maintain or alter, then let your developer initiate the migration. 
  6. Upgrade your themes and modules. Choose the right theme for your organization, add your custom features, and organize your content.
  7. Finalize migration, deploy, and run tests. Identify any issues or areas for improvement and test your site until you get it right. 

Once you’re on Drupal 10, you’ll have to take a few additional steps to prepare for Drupal 11. Resolve themes and modules that were deprecated in Drupal 10 and removed from Drupal 11 and update contributed modules and projects to ensure compatibility in Drupal 11. 

Review the rest of the complete guide for in-depth tips on the common considerations and challenges organizations face when upgrading their Drupal 7 sites to Drupal 10 and eventually 11. 

Making the Most of Your Site Upgrade

If you decide to make the leap to Drupal 11, congratulations! This is an exciting moment in your web design journey. 

However, you may feel apprehensive ahead of the migration process. Of course, you want your new site to be successful in driving conversions and engaging audience members, and you don’t want to lose any vital data along the way. 

Make the most of your site upgrade by:

  • Using this opportunity to launch a full brand refresh, if desired. You’re already creating a new website for your organization. Why not use this opportunity to refresh your brand? Consider the elements of your brand that could use updating, such as your logo, color palette, fonts, or imagery. Incorporate these fresh elements as you update your site to Drupal 11. 
  • Upgrading your site in multiple ways, including accessibility and user experience. Does your website incorporate the latest accessibility guidance? How about user experience best practices? As you craft your Drupal 11 site, keep in mind how you can optimize your site for accessibility and usability. For example, can you simplify your navigation menu? Can you increase text contrast to assist people with visual impairments? 
  • Taking advantage of Drupal 11’s innovative tools. D11’s innovative content staging workflows, simplified front-end development, and configuration flexibility make the platform much more user-friendly and moldable for developers. Use these tools to give your website the design elements and innovative features that you always wanted to offer. 
  • Testing your new site every step of the way to check for issues or roadblocks. Conduct frequent tests to determine if everything is working as it should. This way, you can identify roadblocks and address them before they become detrimental to your ability to connect with audience members. 
  • Reaching out to web development professionals for help. If you feel overwhelmed by the task ahead of you when it comes to updating your Drupal site, don’t panic. Website development professionals like our team at Kanopi can help ensure your upgrade runs smoothly and you’re making the most of Drupal 11’s advanced features. 

These tips will help you make the most of your upgrade and move into the future with a more well-rounded, advanced website. 

How Kanopi Has Helped D7 Clients

Kanopi offers a variety of website growth plans, allowing you to choose the path that best suits your needs and goals. These plans range from a Drupal 7 transition plan to technical SEO strategies and fully customized plans. 

If you’re ready to start the migration process, we’re happy to help. Our web design professionals at Kanopi are experts in Drupal planning and development. Each team member has an average of 11 years of experience in Drupal Development, and several of them are Acquia and Pantheon certified professionals. We are also a supporting partner of the Drupal Association, regularly contribute to the Drupal Project, and are one of the main organizers of BADCamp.

Categories
Drupal Logo

A Handy Visual Guide to Drupal Versions, from 7 to Modern Drupal

Jim Birch
Jim Birch Director of Engineering, AI Practice Lead

If yours is one of the 42% of Drupal sites that are still using Drupal 7, we’re writing this post specifically with you in mind. 

After all, you’ve probably heard the news by now; as of January 5th, 2025, everyone’s beloved, trusted Drupal version 7 will reach its end-of-life. If you haven’t done so already, this means it’s time to start thinking about the ‘m’ word — yup, migration — to a newer version.

Modern Drupal’s versions 8, 9, 10, and the newly released 11 are similar in many ways, yet very different in others. The Drupal 7 migration process is kind of similar to finally trading in your trusty old well-worn VW camper van for a brand new Porsche. As you can imagine, a transition of such magnitude could be a tad jarring for some — not to mention a wee bit confusing.

That’s why we’ve created this handy infographic, to give you an overview of the key differences between each modern Drupal version, their respective functionalities, and how they solve specific business needs. 

What about Drupal 8 & 9?

Since these versions have both reached their end-of-life, there’s no long term support for them. We’ve still included them in our comparison, since their features are integral to understanding the path of version 10 and beyond; however, we don’t recommend them for new builds or upgrades.

An overview of Drupal 7 to Drupal 12

This chart is best viewed when downloaded.

Kanopi Drupal Infographic

The one thing to keep in mind is that anything higher than Drupal 8 is part of Drupal’s composable future — i.e., not only can Drupal integrate with virtually any business or marcom software or service, but it in itself is composable. Taking the best open source tools — CKEditor, Symfony, and Twig, for example —  allows modern Drupal to keep innovating and improving while keeping your website’s appearance and functionality intact.

Drupal remains an excellent platform, and its newest releases demonstrate its commitment to staying current and providing the best possible experience to its users. It’s also incredibly complex, which is why any successful migration from Drupal 7 will involve a great deal of planning and resources — not to mention expertise. That’s why it’s highly recommended to work with a web developer, whether as part of your organization or a third-party web development firm.

Where does Drupal CMS fit in?

Drupal CMS aims to make Drupal more accessible to a broader, less technical audience while keeping the platform feature-rich. Rather than downloading and installing the latest version of Drupal, a user who wants to spin up a Drupal site quickly can instead download Drupal CMS for an easy-to-use, out-of-the-box experience. This makes it easier than ever for users to go from installation to a fully functional website, even if they have little to no prior Drupal experience. Drupal CMS comes pre-packaged with carefully curated “recipes” that cater to everyday use cases. We’ve written about Drupal CMS here.

Screengrab of the on-demand webinar from Jim Birch about Drupal Recipes and Starshot

Kanopi worked on its Recipes initiative. Check out this webinar by Kanopi’s Jim Birch called “Recipes. Starshot, and the Future of Drupal.” (47 minutes)

Need more help?

When searching for the right Drupal partner, it’s helpful to find an organization with experienced developers who contribute to the project on an ongoing basis. At Kanopi Studios, we provide Drupal development services for all types of organizations, including nonprofits, corporations, healthcare organizations, and higher education institutions. 

We’ve also written several blog posts about the various Drupal versions and their upgrade paths: 

Ready to launch the migration process? Contact our team today!

References:

Categories
Drupal and WordPress

Digital Asset Management Tools for Drupal and WordPress

Kat White
Katherine White Chief Technology Officer

In the fast-paced digital content creation and management world, having a robust system to organize and distribute your assets is crucial. This is where Digital Asset Management (DAM) tools come into play. DAM tools provide a centralized platform to store, manage, and share various digital assets such as images, videos, documents, and more. Fortunately, many of these tools seamlessly integrate with popular content management systems (CMS) such as Drupal and WordPress.

What is a Digital Asset Management Tool?

A Digital Asset Management tool is essentially a digital library for all your digital assets. It allows you to:

  • Store: Keep all your assets in a secure and organized repository.
  • Manage: Categorize, tag, and search for assets with ease.
  • Share: Distribute assets internally or externally with controlled access.
  • Track: Monitor asset usage and performance.

One of the biggest benefits of using open-source software such as Drupal or WordPress is the modular nature of the platforms. Plugins and modules are already available for many common third-party systems, including DAMs. If a more custom solution is needed, a qualified partner can build an integration for any tool that provides an API and works seamlessly with your CMS. If a DAM is right for your organization, several integrate well with either Drupal or WordPress for businesses with a wide range of resources and needs.

1. Acquia DAM (formerly known as Widen)

Acquia DAM is a comprehensive DAM solution offering various features for managing and distributing digital assets. It is a powerful and versatile solution suitable for organizations that require a robust and scalable platform to manage their digital assets effectively. 

Pros:

  • Seamless Integration: Acquia DAM integrates smoothly with both Drupal and WordPress, making it easy to access and manage assets directly within your CMS.
  • Robust Features: It offers a wide array of features, including fine-grained roles and permissions, advanced search, metadata management, and version control.
  • Scalability: Acquia DAM can handle large volumes of assets and users, making it suitable for organizations of all sizes.
  • Brand Consistency: Provides centralized control over brand assets, ensuring consistency across all channels.

Cons:

  • Cost: Acquia DAM can be relatively expensive compared to some other DAM solutions.
  • Complexity: The extensive feature set can make the learning curve a bit steep.

Common Use Cases:

  • Enterprise-Level Asset Management: Acquia DAM excels in managing large and complex asset libraries, making it suitable for large organizations with diverse asset management needs.
  • Marketing and Creative Teams: The platform’s robust features and integrations support marketing and creative workflows, streamlining asset creation, management, and distribution.
  • Brand Management: Acquia DAM helps maintain brand consistency by providing centralized control over brand assets and ensuring proper usage across all channels.

2. Bynder

Bynder is a user-friendly and collaborative DAM solution that excels in helping organizations maintain brand consistency and streamline creative workflows. Its intuitive interface and focus on teamwork make it a valuable tool for marketing and creative teams that must collaborate effectively and ensure that their brand is presented consistently across all channels. 

Pros:

  • Intuitive Interface: Bynder’s interface is easy to navigate and understand, even for users with varying levels of technical expertise, minimizing the learning curve.
  • Collaboration: The platform offers tools for real-time collaboration, allowing teams to work together on asset creation, review, and approval processes, fostering efficiency and productivity.
  • Brand Consistency: Bynder helps maintain brand consistency by providing centralized control over brand assets, ensuring that everyone uses the most up-to-date and approved versions.
  • Creative Workflow Management: Bynder streamlines creative workflows with features like task management, project tracking, and feedback tools, facilitating efficient collaboration between creative teams and stakeholders.

Cons:

  • Limited Integrations: While Bynder integrates with Drupal and WordPress, the integrations might not be as seamless as some other DAM solutions.
  • Pricing: Bynder can also be on the pricier side.

Common Use Cases:

  • Marketing and Creative Teams: Bynder’s collaborative features and focus on brand consistency make it ideal for marketing and creative teams to work together efficiently and maintain brand standards.
  • Brand Management: The platform’s centralized control over brand assets and usage guidelines helps organizations ensure their brand is consistently presented across all channels.
  • Global Teams: Bynder’s cloud-based architecture and multi-language support make it a good fit for organizations with globally distributed teams. It facilitates collaboration and asset sharing across different locations.

3. MediaValet

MediaValet is a cloud-based digital asset management (DAM) solution that prioritizes scalability, performance, and security, making it well-suited for organizations that handle large volumes of digital assets and require fast, reliable access.

Pros:

  • Cloud-Based Architecture: MediaValet’s cloud-based nature eliminates the need for on-premise infrastructure, enabling easy access to assets from anywhere with an internet connection.
  • High Performance: The platform is built for speed and efficiency, ensuring quick uploads, downloads, and asset previews, even for large files.
  • Scalability: MediaValet can handle massive asset libraries and user bases, making it suitable for organizations with growing needs.
  • Security: The platform employs robust security measures, including encryption, access controls, and audit trails, to safeguard valuable digital assets.
  • Integrations: MediaValet offers integrations with various third-party applications, including popular CMS platforms and marketing tools, streamlining workflows.

Cons:

  • User Interface: Some users might find MediaValet’s interface less intuitive than other DAM solutions.
  • Feature Set: While MediaValet offers a good range of features, it might not be as comprehensive as some other solutions.

Common Use Cases:

  • Large Asset Libraries: MediaValet excels in managing and delivering large volumes of digital assets, making it ideal for organizations with extensive media libraries.
  • High-Traffic Environments: The platform’s focus on performance ensures fast and reliable asset access, even in high-traffic scenarios.
  • Security-Conscious Organizations: MediaValet’s robust security features make it a good fit for organizations that handle sensitive or confidential information.
  • Distributed Teams: Cloud-based access enables teams across different locations to collaborate and share assets seamlessly.
  • Video and Rich Media Management: MediaValet’s support for video and rich media formats and its high-performance capabilities make it well-suited for organizations that work extensively with these assets.

4. PhotoShelter

PhotoShelter has an intuitive UI to drive brand engagement, get better content ROI, and improve efficiency. PhotoShelter is used by 75% of the top 50 higher education institutions, including global enterprise clients like Delta Airlines, FreshDirect, IMG Golf, and Wendy’s. The HIPAA compliance make it a good choice for healthcare.

Pros:

  • HIPAA compliance & proprietary data infrastructure: PhotoShelter manages its own HIPAA-compliant private cloud infrastructure, so data isn’t sent to a 3rd party for hosting. And the company claims it has never been hacked or lost an asset in the 20 years since it was founded. 
  • Real-time workflow: With smart features, PhotoShelter can get content from live shots to launch on social media in under a minute, so users are never slowed down. 
  • Easy search with AI: PhotoShelter’s unique AI Visual Search and proprietary AI tagging capabilities can save tons of time on searching and adding manual metadata. 
  • Social media content amplification: PhotoShelter offers tools to automatically distribute content and track its engagement across other social media accounts. An organization can tap into followers from partners, influencers, employees, or other key groups. 

Cons:

  • Not for very small organizations: PhotoShelter is not appropriate for very small organizations; it works best for organizations that are mid-market or larger and need a collaborative platform. 
  • Not for federal government organizations: PhotoShelter is not FEDRAMP or ITAR/EAR certified, so it is not appropriate for organizations requiring those certifications. 

Common Use Cases: 

  • Enterprise Organizations: Enterprise organizations trust PhotoShelter to ensure their content workflows are seamless across all of their teams. 
  • Marketing & Creative Teams: PhotoShelter’s real-time workflow, collaboration tools and integrations mean it can help marketing & creative teams get content created, organized, and distributed faster than ever. 
  • Live Content: With PhotoShelter’s real-time distribution capabilities, it is great for getting content out from live events, ensuring maximum engagement. 
  • Complex Social Media Ecosystems: Because of PhotoShelter’s social media distribution & tracking capabilities, PhotoShelter’s social media distribution & tracking capabilities make it ideal for organizations who want to drive engagement across an ecosystem of accounts – such as partners, employees, influencers, or talent. 

Which Digital Asset Management tool is right for your needs?

Choosing the right DAM tool depends on your specific needs and requirements. Acquia DAM, Bynder, and MediaValet all offer powerful features and integrate well with Drupal and WordPress. When deciding, consider factors such as budget, ease of use, scalability, and feature set. Remember, a well-implemented DAM solution can streamline your asset management workflow, improve collaboration, enhance brand consistency, and ultimately empower your organization to tell its story effectively through digital content.

Categories
Drupal Recipes logo

Default Content in Drupal

Jim Birch
Jim Birch Director of Engineering, AI Practice Lead

In Drupal 10.3, the DefaultContent API was added to Drupal core as part of the experimental Recipes APIs. These APIs allow Drupal to create content from files that are part of a recipe.

This content that we programmatically create isn’t intended for deploying or migrating content, we have the Workspaces and other modules for that.

Instead, it can be a great tool in our toolkit for creating demos and test content, while freeing developers and testers from the drudgery of repetitive content creation.

How did we get here?

Starting back in 2011, a group of open-source Drupal developers started working on a new install profile for Drupal called Snowman. Instead of having a generic and unopinionated starting point, the idea behind Snowman was that it wanted to provide a ready-to-use Drupal site tailored for a specific use case.

One such use case was for an install profile for a band site, during which it looked like Lee Rowlands (larowlan) came up with the idea which eventually became the Default Content module.

The Default Content contrib module

While we added a way in core to consume content config files from recipes, we are still at the start of what core can do, and mid-journey of what the contrib module aims to do.

Until the recent interest from the Recipes Initiative team, the Default Content module has always been used for creating default content configuration files for custom modules and install profiles. You could create content on a local site, export it to your module or a module in an install profile, and when that module was enabled (or a site was started from the install profile), and you installed the default content module as a dependency, you would get your content imported. This all still works exactly as it always has, and now it can also be used with recipes. 

Drupal Recipes are a framework and set of tools for automating the configuration of a site. They allow developers to rapidly configure entities, fields, and other settings. A recipe can be applied to any number of different sites. This means creating multiple sites can be achieved faster and with a greater degree of consistency in how they are configured. A great deal of human error and forgetfulness can be avoided by using Recipes, particularly for repetitive config. (Check out my comprehensive guide to Drupal recipes.)

Using the Default Content module

The export process is the same for modules and recipes. Let’s review that now.

Getting set up

Install the module as you normally would.  Since I am using the module for creating content for recipes, I install it in the dev section of my composer requirements as I do not need it in production.

composer require --dev drupal/default_content

And enable the module:

drush en -y default_content

The module doesn’t have a user interface. Instead, it provides drush commands that can be run to export content.

What can we export?

Out of the box, we can export the following entity types:

  • Content type nodes: node <node id>
  • Taxonomy Terms: taxonomy_term <taxonomy term id>
  • Files: file <file id>
  • Media: media <media id>
  • Menu Links: menu_link_content <menu link id>
  • Content blocks: block_content <block id>
  • Shortcuts: shortcut <shortcut id>

At this time, there isn’t a way to export by bundle type, think all nodes of type Article, or all menu links from the main menu, but there is a patch for it.

Let’s take a look at the three commands that the module provides to export content.

Default content drush commands

default-content-export-references

Exports an entity and all its referenced entities. This is my go to command as it helps you export referenced media, files, taxonomy terms, and users from the parent node.

Alias:

  • dcer

Arguments:

  • entity_type – The entity type to export.
  • entity_id – The ID of the entity to export

One of these arguments is required.

Options:

  • folder – The module or recipe’s content folder to export to. Entities are automatically grouped by entity type into directories.

Examples:

# Exports node 123 and all its dependencies.
# To a module:
drush dcer node 123 module_name 

# To a recipe:
drush dcer node 123 --folder=recipes/recipe_name/content

# Export all nodes and all their dependencies.
drush dcer node --folder=modules/custom/my_custom_module/content

default-content-export

Exports a single entity. If you want to manage your own dependencies.

Alias:

  • dce

Arguments:

  • entity_type – The entity type to export.
  • entity_id – The ID of the entity to export

Both of these arguments are required.

Options:

  • file – Write out the exported content to a file instead of stdout

Examples:

# Exports node 123 only. You are responsible to export dependencies.
drush dce node 123 module_name

default-content-export-module

Exports all the content defined in a module info file. This is most helpful for distribution and install profile maintainers where they would want to maintain and update default content from a canonical source.

Alias:

  • dcem

Arguments:

  • module – The machine name of the module

The argument is required.

Options:

  • None

Examples:

# Exports all the content defined in a module info file.
drush dcem module_name

# The module's info file would need to have a section like this:
default_content:
  node:
	- c9a89616-7057-4971-8337-555e425ed782
	- b6d6d9fd-4f28-4918-b100-ffcfb15c9374
  file:
	- 59674274-f1f5-4d6a-be00-fecedfde6534
	- 0fab901d-36ba-4bfd-9b00-d6617ffc2f1f
  media:
	- ee63912a-6276-4081-93af-63ca66285594
	- bcb3c719-e266-45c1-8b90-8f630f86dcc7
  menu_link_content:
	- 9fbb684c-156d-49d6-b24b-755501b434e6
	- 19f38567-4051-4682-bf00-a4f19de48a01
  block_content:
	- af171e09-fcb2-4d93-a94d-77dc61aab213
	- a608987c-1b74-442b-b900-a54f40cda661

Creating a Drupal recipe with Default content

So let’s create a recipe that can store default content we can send to a test server so our QA engineer can test. We’ve created a node that has our new feature on our local environment. Rather than having to rebuild that page manually, we will export the content, and apply the recipe after it has been deployed.

Create the recipe structure

We keep our recipes in the recommended folder above the webroot.

You can manually create a recipe folder, the content folder, and a recipe.yml file or use the command line:

mkdir recipes/recipe-name
mkdir recipes/recipe-name/content
touch recipes/recipe-name/recipe.yml

In our recipe.yml file, we only need a name, description, and type.

name: 'Recipe name'
description: 'Demo content for ticket xyz'
type: 'Content'

Export your content

Using the drush commands above, usually the dcer command to export the content you need. Verify in your /content folder that you now have the entities you expect. It should look something like this:

We can now uninstall the Default Content module from our local environment.

Normally we just use recipes in our local development environments and deploy the resulting config, but when leveraging the Default Content module in your recipes, you will deploy them to your server. 

Once deployed and applied on your site, you’ll probably want to remove your recipe in a subsequent pull request as you don’t need it in production.

Commit and deploy your new recipe along with your code changes as you normally would.

Applying the recipe

Once your deployment has finished, you can use Drupal core’s recipe script to apply the recipe. If you have cli access to your server, from the webroot you can run:

php core/scripts/drupal recipe ../recipes/recipe-name -v

This uses the recipe PHP script from Drupal to apply the recipe from its current location. The -v flag prints verbose information during the application process.

If you are using Drush 13 or above, they added a recipe command which is a wrapper around the core script.

drush recipe ../recipes/recipe-name -v

If you are on Pantheon, you can user Terminus to run either command:

# PHP script
terminus drush site.env -- ev "passthru('php core/scripts/drupal recipe ../recipes/recipe-name -v');"

# Drush 13+
terminus drush site.env -- recipe ../recipes/recipe-name -v

Verify the content has been created as expected and have your PMs and clients rejoice in the fact that you saved them some time having to recreate it!

What Default content isn’t made for

Default content is not meant to be a replacement for content deployment solutions. It can be a good starting point on new sites. It’s great for demo sites, and quality assurance and user acceptance testing, but there are better solutions like the Workspaces module in Drupal core that allow for you to stage content and deploy it later. 

One of the biggest reasons is that we don’t know what the IDs will be on the destination site. You may have started out with the same database, but there is a good chance that the IDs have been increased on the production site by content editors adding new articles or pages.

You can also apply a recipe multiple times, or install and uninstall a module and add that default content again. There are issues in the module’s queue to address some of these situations, but work still needs to be done to improve the processes.

What’s next?

There are plenty of issues in the module’s issue queue to improve the quality and functionality of Default content, and the eleven year old Support default content entities core issue that has recently won some success thanks to the Recipes initiative.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on how you are using Default Content, or how you plan on using it! Please reach out to me in the Drupal Slack or on LinkedIn.

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What You Need to Know about the Drupal 9 to 10 Upgrade

Jim Birch
Jim Birch Director of Engineering, AI Practice Lead

If you’re up to date on your Drupal news, you’re probably aware that Drupal 10 was released in December 2022, and Drupal 11 was launched in August 2024. 

As a current Drupal 9 user, you may be strategizing your website’s transition. Drupal 9 users must first upgrade to Drupal 10.3 before they can move to Drupal 11. As Drupal explains, “All core updates added prior to 10.3.0 have been removed.”

Luckily, the Drupal 9 to 10 upgrade was heralded as the easiest upgrade in Drupal’s history. That’s because Drupal 10 is backward-compatible with Drupal 9 and does not require a major overhaul of the core system. However, the planning and development process will still require time and attention to ensure the upgrade goes smoothly. 

Let’s examine the Drupal upgrade process and how your organization’s marketing team can provide support. 

Fast Facts about the Drupal 9 to 10 Upgrade

Brush up on your Drupal release history with these fast facts: 

  • Drupal 9 was released in June 2020. At the time of its release, it offered an easier upgrade than ever before, as it built on features released for Drupal 8. 
  • Support for Drupal 9 ended in November 2023. That means there aren’t any new features or security updates being released for this version anymore. 
  • Drupal 11 was released in August 2024. However, before they can upgrade to D11, Drupal 9 users must upgrade to Drupal 10.3. 

What’s New in Drupal 11?

As mentioned, Drupal 11 is built on innovations released as part of Drupal 9. When switching to Drupal 10 and 11, you won’t be confronted with an entirely new structure and system to get used to. 

That being said, Drupal 11 offers plenty of new features to look forward to, including:

  • The experimental Recipes API that enables simple sharing of module configurations and additions.
  • The Drupal core Workspace module that facilitates content staging using multiple workspaces on a single site.
  • Single-Directory Components for simplified front-end development.
  • A new Navigation module that restructures the admin toolbar using modern tools. 
  • An Access policy API that provides more flexibility for access controls. 

Steps to Upgrade From Drupal 9 to 10

If you upgraded your site from Drupal 7 to 9 in the past, you know that migration required transferring all of your data to a brand new Drupal 9 website. The Drupal 9 to 10 migration (and 10 to 11!) won’t be such a significant undertaking. 

However, you can still take a few measures to set your website up for success. Follow these steps to prepare your Drupal 9 site for the migration: 

  • Upgrade to at least Drupal 9.4.4 or later. Core updates made before 9.4 have been eliminated, so you must be on at least Drupal 9.4.4 to use the data upgrade path from CKEditor 4 to CKEditor 5.
  • Run Drupal Rector on custom modules and themes. Drupal Rector scans code for deprecated functions and helps developers upgrade them.
  • Upgrade to CKEditor 5. CKEditor 4 reached its end-of-life at the end of 2023. To stay up to date, check out Drupal’s step-by-step instructions for upgrading to CKEditor 5. 
  • Check your PHP version. Drupal 10 requires PHP 8.1 or higher. Log into your website’s hosting account and check the settings in your control panel to verify which version of PHP you’re using. 
  • Check your modules and themes. Not all modules and themes from Drupal 9 will be compatible with Drupal 10. If your site uses a module or theme that was removed from Drupal core, download the contributed project version before migrating to Drupal 10.
  • Update to Drupal 10 and test your site. Run automated code tests using tools like Drupal Rector or PHPStan. Also, conduct manual testing to ensure that everything is working as expected. Check your forms, links, page navigation, and other site elements to note any user experience issues. 

If you have a web developer on your team, you can either take these steps yourself or work with an external Drupal developer. 

Working with a Drupal Development Expert

Although the Drupal 9 to 10 transition is a more straightforward upgrade, it’s still typically recommended that you work with a Drupal web developer to oversee the process. This can ensure a smooth transition and help maintain data integrity and security. 

Look for a Drupal web development firm that offers services such as: 

  • Overseeing the process from start to finish 
  • Custom module development depending on your organization’s needs
  • An accessibility-focused approach to ensure your website is usable for all audiences
  • Third-party and custom API integrations to integrate tools like your payment gateway or security portal seamlessly with your Drupal website
  • Mobile responsive design to create a positive mobile user experience
  • Search engine optimization (SEO) recommendations to maintain or enhance your website’s search results rankings
  • Ongoing support to implement module upgrades and security patches as needed and to help with other aspects like content strategy and performance enhancements

If you’re looking for an experienced Drupal partner, Kanopi Studios is a great choice. Our Drupal team members have an average of 11 years of Drupal experience each. We are also a supporting partner to the Drupal Association, a founding sponsor of Discover Drupal, and regular contributors to the Drupal Project.

Upgrading your website from Drupal 9 to 10 and eventually 11 shouldn’t be a hassle. With these tips, you can make the already simple process even easier.

Looking for more Drupal tips and resources? Start here: 

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