DrupalCon News & Updates: Early Bird Registration is Open for DrupalCon Chicago 2026!

The Early Bird registration is now open for the largest Drupal event in North America, DrupalCon Chicago 2026, happening March 23–26, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. Don’t miss your chance to connect, learn, and celebrate with the global Drupal community.

For a limited time, secure your DrupalCon Chicago registration for just $575—the lowest price available!

Learn more and register now to get your ticket at the lowest price!

Don’t miss your chance to connect, learn, and celebrate with the global Drupal community.

When you buy a conference ticket, you’ll get access to:

  • DrupalCon opening reception
  • All general conference sessions
  • All contribution sessions
  • Keynote speakers, access to the Expo Hall, and raffle contest
  • Trivia Night
  • Lunch and coffee breaks
  • Networking and mentorship

View the program at a glance now.

Stay at DrupalCon Chicago 2026 Headquarters

Make the most of your DrupalCon experience by staying at the Hilton Chicago, the official DrupalCon hotel.

DrupalCon is more than just sessions. The real magic happens in hallway track conversations, late-night discussions, and spontaneous coffee meetups. Book the conference hotel to stay close to it all.

Book your room at Hilton Chicago!!

DrupalCon Chicago 2026 Call For Speakers Deadline Approaching Soon

The Drupal Association is dedicated to creating an event that is welcoming and inclusive to everyone. The Call for Speakers for DrupalCon Chicago 2026 submission deadline is almost here!

Submitters may edit their submissions until 26 September 2025, 11:59 pm Central Time.

Submit your session soon!

Drupal Association blog: Meet Glenn Hilton and his vision for the future of Drupal

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We’re thrilled to introduce Glenn Hilton, one of the newest members elected to the Drupal Association Board, with her term beginning 1 November 2025.

Glenn is the Founder and CEO of ImageX, a Drupal agency that he established in 2001. Over more than two decades of leadership, Glenn has combined creativity with community to guide both his company and his career. His passion for open source and collaboration has made him an active participant in the Drupal community for more than ten years.

Beyond his role as CEO, Glenn is deeply committed to building strong teams and helping people reach their full potential. He believes that lasting success comes from relationships and from creating environments where individuals and communities can thrive.

We are thrilled to have Glenn bring this perspective to the Board. Here are his thoughts as he begins this new chapter:

What are you most excited about when it comes to joining the Drupal Association Board?
I'm excited to help shape the business strategy that ensures the long-term sustainability of the Drupal ecosystem. It is a unique opportunity to bridge the gap between agencies, contributors, and end clients while keeping Drupal both innovative and commercially viable.

What do you hope to accomplish during your time on the board?
I want to strengthen feedback loops with agencies and enterprise users so that we have stronger data to help us better understand and support the needs of those investing in Drupal. I also hope to help expand Drupal’s reach by improving how we communicate its value and create new paths for commercial growth.

What specific skill or perspective do you contribute to the board?
As CEO of a long-standing Drupal agency, I bring a business-first perspective rooted in delivery, growth strategy, and client expectations. With more than 20 years in leadership, I focus on scalable teams, efficient operations, and long-term partnerships.

How has Drupal impacted your life or career?
Drupal changed the trajectory of my agency and gave me a career grounded in purpose, global collaboration, and community. It is more than a platform, it is a values-driven ecosystem where even competitors work together with integrity and a shared mission.

Tell us something that the Drupal community might not know about you.
Outside of work, I am a real estate and architecture enthusiast and probably spend too much time analyzing floor plans. I have four amazing kids, one grandchild, a wonderful wife, and a deep passion for my faith in Jesus Christ.

Share a favorite quote or piece of advice that has inspired you.
“Leadership is not about being in charge. It is about taking care of those in your charge.” — Simon Sinek

We look forward to the contributions Glenn will make during her time on the Drupal Association Board. Thank you, Glenn, for sharing your time and expertise with the Drupal community. You can connect with Glenn on LinkedIn.

About the Drupal Association Board of Directors

The Drupal Association Board of Directors comprises 13 members with nine nominated for staggered three-year terms, two elected by Drupal Association members, and one seat is reserved for the Drupal Project Founder, Dries Buytaert. One seat  is reserved for the immediate past chair as a non-voting member. All Board terms start on 1 November of each year.

The Board meets twice in person for weekend retreat and about 5 times virtually each year.   The Board provides strategic guidance to the Drupal Association and oversight of the Association’s management, policy development, management, budget, and fundraising efforts.

The Drop Times: New Way of Writing Hooks in Drupal 11 Explained

Drupal 11.1 introduces a modern way to write hooks using PHP attributes, moving beyond the traditional procedural approach. This shift brings autoloading, dependency injection, better testability, and cleaner code organization—making hooks faster, smarter, and easier to maintain. Teade Geertsma of Emble explains how the new system works with practical code examples, covers ordering and backward compatibility, and highlights what remains procedural. A must-read for developers preparing their modules for Drupal’s object-oriented future.

The Vardot Team: Varbase Health Checklist: Best Practices We Follow

Varbase is our flagship solution, an enterprise-ready Drupal distribution that provides a strong foundation for any digital project. And like any other software, having regular updates and smart workflows in place will help the software realize its full potential. In this post, we'll cover: Latest Varbase features and release highlights Best practices for long-term longevity and security Recommended maintenance checklist you can adopt today   What’s New in Varbase Varbase 10.0.x and beyond bring major improvements, smart defaults, modern tools, and optional AI integration. Feature highlights:

The Vardot Team: 10 Twig Tricks for Better Drupal Theming

Twig is the theming engine that Drupal uses, at least after Drupal 8. It's a templating engine that is developer-friendly and designer-friendly. Its syntax is intuitive, logical, and flexible. In this post, we will cover 10 Twig tricks that will enhance your Drupal theming process, and make theming fun and productive.   1. The Debugger Debugging is the gateway to understanding, so before any tips or tricks, the Twig debugger must be enabled. This will add HTML comments around template suggestions and show which template is being used. In services.yml, set  twig.config: debug: true auto_reload: true cache: false Using dump() for inspection {{ dump(content) }} // for cleaner outputs, install Devel and use kint() {{ kint(content) }}  

The Vardot Team: Drupal 7 Migration Readiness Checklist

Drupal 7 has reached its end of life, which means no further support, security updates, or bug fixes. If new security flaws are discovered in your Drupal 7 instance, they won't be fixed, or if bugs start appearing, there won't be an active community working to resolve them. This builds huge technical debt for any organization. And technicalities aside, organizations must always meet compliance standards, data protection and accessibility regulations.

CodeLift: Casestudy Drupal 7 upgrade: Transforming Cram-A-Lot Ubercart Webshop from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10

CodeLift migrated Cram-A-Lot’s e-commerce site from Drupal 7 with Ubercart to Drupal 10 with Drupal Commerce. The migration included over 100 configurable products, quote request workflows, and related content.

The approach involved replicating the production environment locally, using AI-assisted refactoring to update custom modules, and preserving the existing content architecture and field structures. Automated visual regression testing helped verify consistency across more than 40 screens.

The result is a Drupal 10 Commerce site that mirrors the original design and functionality while running on a modern platform, ensuring continuity for product data, quotes, and order workflows.

Drupal AI Initiative: Your Drupal AI use case could be featured—tell us how you are innovating

At the time of writing there are 7,151 reported installs of Drupal AI and adoption is accelerating. Every day, new examples emerge of how Drupal AI helps teams tackle real-world business challenges, optimise content management, streamline workflows, and improve user experiences. Yet, with so many organisations adopting Drupal AI, it can be challenging to uncover every use case.

Your Drupal AI use case could be featured—tell us how you’re innovating

We want to hear from you! If your organisation is using Drupal AI—whether you are a Drupal certified partner, AI Maker, agency, end customer, or an independent consultant—we invite you to share your story. You could be featured in a guest blog post or invited to participate in a webinar, helping others understand the practical applications of AI.

Get in touch to let us know how you are putting Drupal AI to work.

Drupal AI in action: examples from local government and education

Southwark Council, London: is transforming how it brings content online. Their digital estate holds over 2,000 PDFs, most designed for print rather than web consumption. A new AI PDF Importer, developed for the LocalGov Drupal, is helping convert these static documents into accessible, structured, and user-friendly web content. By integrating AI-powered automation, the project addresses pagination, heading hierarchies, image extraction, and link mapping, reducing a process that previously took hours to just seconds, and making vital information more accessible for residents.

University of Edinburgh, Scotland: has developed an AI tool, created during an internship, integrated into its Drupal-based content management system, EdWeb. Leveraging Drupal AI and a new “AI Agents” framework, the tool allows content editors to interact with specialised AI agents, such as a style guide agent and a site maintenance agent. These agents access trusted university resources, including the editorial style guide and acronym database, to provide context-aware guidance and support for publishers.

Artevelde University of Applied Sciences, Ghent, Belgium: is advancing knowledge on AI-assisted development through student contributions. Witze Van der Straeten has published a tutorial on converting Figma designs into Drupal components, illustrating how Drupal AI can significantly accelerate the process of turning designs into functional solutions.

These examples demonstrate the broad range of applications for Drupal AI, from local government to higher education and the wider ICT community, showing how AI can make content management smarter and more efficient. Of course Drupal AI has many other applications and we want to hear yours!

Share your Drupal AI achievements and help others learn

We want to showcase how organisations are using Drupal AI, whether in research, pilot, beta, or full production. Share your experience and you could be featured in a blog or invited to a webinar, helping others understand the practical impact of AI with Drupal.

Contact us to tell your story.

The Vardot Team: Varbase Health Checklist: Best Practices We Follow

Varbase is our flagship solution, an enterprise-ready Drupal distribution that provides a strong foundation for any digital project. And like any other software, having regular updates and smart workflows in place will help the software realize its full potential. In this post, we'll cover: Latest Varbase features and release highlights Best practices for long-term longevity and security Recommended maintenance checklist you can adopt today   What’s New in Varbase Varbase 10.0.x and beyond bring major improvements, smart defaults, modern tools, and optional AI integration. Feature highlights: