Our Drupal image optimization mini-series is in full swing — and we’re glad to have you along for the ride! In Part 1, we explored how to improve your Drupal images visually through smart cropping, artistic effects, and subtle enhancements like watermarks.
Discover what's possible when enterprise website migrations are approached with care, structure, and the right balance of expertise and collaboration.Last week, I had the honor of conducting a webinar for Drupal4Gov about "Drupal, Schema.org, and AI for Government." I recently connected with the organizers of Drupal4Gov at DrupalCon Atlanta. Although unsure if I could attend and possibly present at Drupal GovCon, they invited me to do a webinar, and I said yes.
For the past two years, I have been working on and discussing the Schema.org Blueprints module. I have several decks and slides presenting different aspects and approaches to using the module, so conducting a webinar would not be difficult for me. Meanwhile, my experience at DrupalCon Atlanta changed my opinion about the importance of embracing AI.
Hence, I committed to mixing a little AI into my webinar…. Okay, I mixed a lot of AI into this presentation. I would go as far as to say that ChatGPT was my co-presenter, being more knowledgeable about the Schema.org specification than me, while I had more expertise with blending Schema.org into Drupal.
I had no slides for the webinar, just prompts and two demos. I was optimistic that I could have a conversation with ChatGPT that showed the value and potential of embracing AI.
I encourage you to watch the recording below to see why I’m excited about playing with AI. You can also jump to the end to catch my favorite moment from the Q&A, which reveals the inspiration for this blog post's main image.
Read MoreIn this episode, John Picozzi and Jason Pamental explore the connections fostered by using Drupal across different geographies, the evolution of conferences, and how design systems are being utilized at Chewy. We also delve into the application of AI in e-commerce and coding, and discuss the practicalities of maintaining governance in large organizations. Join us for an engaging discussion filled with personal anecdotes, professional insights, and future prospects.
For show notes visit: https://www.talkingDrupal.com/503
Topics John PicozziJohn Picozzi is the Solutions Architect at EPAM Systems, where he helps organizations implement scalable and sustainable digital solutions—most often using Drupal. With over a decade of experience in web development, John has become a trusted voice in the Drupal community for his commitment to open source, user-centered design, and thoughtful architecture. John is a contributor to Drupal and an active member of the community as the organizer of the Drupal Providence Meetup and New England Drupal Camp. He’s also well known as a co-host of the Talking Drupal podcast, a weekly show focused on all things Drupal, where he interviews community members and shares insights on development, strategy, and community engagement. Outside of podcasting and coding, John frequently speaks at DrupalCamps and conferences across the U.S., offering sessions that span technical deep dives to community and career development topics. You can find more about his work and speaking engagements at picozzi.com, or follow him on Drupal.org
Jason PamentalJason Pamental is a designer, strategist, and technologist specializing in typography, variable fonts, and digital design systems. He is currently Principal Designer at Chewy, where he leads their design system efforts and helps guide their mobile app architecture and strategy. With over 30 years of experience, Jason has worked with organizations such as Adobe, ESPN, Fidelity, and the State of Rhode Island to shape impactful digital experiences. He’s a globally recognized expert in web typography and the author of Responsive Typography. His work has helped define how variable fonts are used on the web today. Jason is a frequent speaker at conferences like Beyond Tellerrand, An Event Apart, and SmashingConf, and he shares his knowledge through writing, teaching, and open source contributions. His articles, presentations, and resources can be found at rwt.io — short for Responsive Web Typography — and many of his talks, videos, and associated resources are available on https://noti.st/jpamental An active supporter of the open web and the Drupal community, Jason is committed to bridging the gap between design and development. Outside of work, he enjoys riding bikes, making espresso, spending time with his family in Rhode Island, and following Leo and Henry around Turner Reservoir, posting photos on Instagram.
HostsJohn Picozzi - epam.com johnpicozzi
Jason Pamental - rwt.io.
Dear Readers,
The Drupal community has long understood the web as shared infrastructure. It is not only a tool for publishing or development, but a space where people collaborate, contribute, and take collective responsibility for digital progress. Transparency, open participation, and shared ownership are central to how Drupal has evolved and how its community continues to grow.
The recent endorsement of the United Nations Open Source Principles by the Drupal Association reflects a broader shift in how global institutions approach digital governance. The UN’s focus on openness by default, secure and inclusive design, and sustainability aligns closely with the Drupal community’s long-standing practices. This moment highlights the increasing visibility of open source values at an international level and validates the work that communities like Drupal have been doing for decades.
For Drupal contributors, this is not a change in direction but a reinforcement of what has already proven to work. It affirms that building digital infrastructure in the public interest requires more than code. It requires a commitment to open processes, active engagement, and a shared sense of ownership over the tools and spaces we create together.
We acknowledge that there are more stories to share. However, due to selection constraints, we must pause further exploration for now.
To get timely updates, follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. You can also join us on Drupal Slack at #thedroptimes.
Thank you,
Sincerely
Alka Elizabeth
Sub-editor, The DropTimes.
A high-level comparison of some of the most-widely used Bootstrap framework-focused base themes, including feedback from some of their maintainers.
With more than 150 Bootstrap compatible Drupal 10 contributed themes on Drupal.org, selecting the best Bootstrap-powered base theme for you, your development team, and your project can sometimes come down to a superficial popularity contest. The lack of a clear comparison between the most widely-used and/or most well-known options is frustrating.
Rather than attempting the futile task of comparing all 150+ themes, based on my experience and conversations, I have selected the six (of what I consider to be) leading Bootstrap 5 compatible base themes for this task.
As someone who is not a dedicated front-end or theme developer, but is somewhat comfortable with the Bootstrap framework, I've used several of the options included in this comparison. This very site uses the Bootstrap base theme, our DrupalEasy Academy curriculum site and the Drupal Career Online theming lessons uses Bootstrap Barrio, and our Single Directory Component workshop utilizes Radix.
Despite my experience with several of the Bootstrap 5-powered base themes, I still didn't have a clear understanding of which one I should use or recommend based on different projects and teams. Gaining clarity in this area is the goal of this blog post.
In addition to my own experiences and research, I also contacted the most active maintainer(s) of each base theme and asked each to provide some feedback about their projects.
The base themes I decided to compare in this blog post were based on previous experiences, usage numbers on drupal.org and comments on a social media post about this topic that I posted in early April, 2025.
*Note: It is not lost on me the potential confusion between the three base themes with "Bootstrap" in their name!
NameLatest releaseUsageCommits*Artisan2.0.0-alpha2 released 7 May 202519636Bootstrap5.0.1 released 16 September 202498,5050Bootstrap 54.0.3 released 7 August 202419,5040Bootstrap Barrio5.5.19 released 6 December 202439,8440Radix6.0.1 released 18 January 20258,68238UI Suite Bootstrap5.1.0-beta1 released 9 April 202525935*Commits on current release branch in 2025
From the data above, it is clear to see that Bootstrap has (by far) the most usage, half have had a release in the last six months (November 2024 - April 2025,) with the other half having no commits on the listed branch in 2025 yet.
One of the first things I do when evaluating a base theme is to take a look at how they handle CSS compiling. Generally, this falls into one of three categories:
Note: a developer or team's front-end tool chain can take many different forms, so this section is mostly geared towards folks not comfortable setting up their own toolchain.
For our contenders, here's what I found:
With the Drupal community's love affair with single directory components (SDCs) not looking to wane anytime soon, it is becoming more-and-more common for base themes to include a useful set of components that can be utilized.
Ideally, (IMHO) SDCs should be entirely self-contained, not relying on libraries or Sass source files that don't reside in the SDC. Unfortunately, this is not always possible, but it is something that I definitely consider when doing my evaluation. Here's how our contenders incorporate SDCs:
I honestly didn't consider this aspect until one of the base theme maintainers I interviewed mentioned it. Some base themes expose a lot of configuration options through Drupal's Appearance admin UI settings pages and some do not. Different theme developers might have different preferences - often those newer to theme development (or those for whom it is not a full-time job) prefer more configuration options exposed in the Drupal admin UI.
For base themes, I find that a little bit of documentation goes a long way. I don't expect base theme contributors to document every single possible use case, but I do hope that enough documentation exists for a developer to understand the theme's pros and cons and provide enough step-by-step instructions to demonstrate (with examples) best practices when building out a subtheme.
About half-way through my research for this blog post, I realized that without direct experience with all of them (which I do not have,) it would be best if I gave each project's maintainers a chance to provide some feedback.
I contacted the most active maintainer(s) for each project (based on number of commits over the past six months) and asked them the same three questions:
I considered asking an additional question about how well positioned each base theme is for integration with Experience Builder, but I decided against it as we're still at least 5 months away from its initial release and didn't think it was an entirely fair question.
I received responses from maintainers of Bootstrap, Bootstrap Barrio, Radix, and UI Suite Bootstrap, and have included summaries of each of their responses here.
Unfortunately, the maintainer didn't respond to my message.
Alberto Siles (hatuhay on drupal.org) is one of the maintainers of both Bootstrap and Bootstrap Barrio. He mentioned that he took over maintenance of Bootstrap after it was abandoned - originally only to provide updates to it, "but now it depends on the community if they embrace the new code or not." He will continue to maintain both base themes (wow!) and improvements to each will depend on feedback (and help) he receives in each issue queue.
About Bootstrap Barrio's advantages, he wrote, "Long term stability, proven code, but mostly, the theme is designed in a way that makes it easy to upgrade in both Bootstrap and Drupal major versions seamlessly. Now, the code is constantly updated for both Drupal and Bootstrap enhancements, this is also a modern theme in every aspect."
He also mentioned that Bootstrap Barrio is designed for developers of all skill levels, as it is the "subtheme that discriminates. The basic subtheme will let you work with predefined color pallets, Google fonts and other backend configuration and some css, while the Sass version will setup, in minutes, a custom compiled version of Bootstrap."
Vladimir Roudakov (vladimiraus on drupal.org) replied, "Janna (jannakha on drupal.org) and I created the Bootstrap 4 and consequently Bootstrap 5 themes as simple, non-prescriptive, and very flexible Bootstrap themes. At the time, 2020-2021, there were no lightweight Bootstrap-based themes, and the original Bootstrap theme was heavily outdated."
He also mentioned that this base theme is geared towards intermediate-level developers and requires "minor tweaking for Sass setup."
Sohail Lajevardi (doxigo on drupal.org) said that some of Radix's advantages include being one of the first Drupal base themes to include SDCs, the use of modern front-end tools (including Laravel Mix and BiomeJS), its own command-line utility, very good documentation (including YouTube videos), and an effort to minimize Drupal-isms.
Interestingly, he also mentioned that, "I always considered Radix to be a theme and not a configuration vehicle, so we do everything where it needs to be, in the theme. No configuration mix up." I found this an especially interesting contrast to several of the other contenders, notably Bootstrap Barrio and Artisan, both of which utilize a good number of configuration options in Drupal's Appearance settings.
He did mention a disadvantage being "Not easy to understand all the tools and bells of the theme for a newcomer." But he did reiterate Radix's documentation being a solution for this - especially for those new to it.
This base theme is a bit of an outlier, as it is very closely tied to the UI Suite project. I don't have a good handle on how likely it would be for a team to decide to use this base theme if they aren't UI Suite module users as well.
Florent Torregrosa (grimreaper on drupal.org) stressed that this project is a "production ready, design-system-oriented-first theme." He went on to say that together with UI Suite, the base theme provides "tools to allow site builders to configure how they want the design system artifacts (components, styles, Icons, CSS variables, etc.) to fit their business needs. And so we have nothing hardcoded for specific content types or other content entities, bundles, or fields."
Michael Fanini (g4mbini on drupal.org) added that it "packages in one place all Bootstrap specification & designs artifacts (components, style utilities, icons, forms, …) with modern tools from core (SDC, Icon API)" and together with other UI Suite modules provides a no/low-code method for Site-builders to connect Drupal fields to Bootstrap components.
In fact, as I've learned more and more about the UI Suite eco-system of projects, the more it is evident that one of its primary goals is to make it as "design-system-oriented" as possible, as well as prioritize no/low code field-to-component mapping. Much of this means that rather than the Drupal developers providing the Drupal-y templates to the non-Drupal-y front-end developers, it is the front-end developers who provide the components to the Drupal developers to wire to Drupal entities, bundles, and fields. The UI Suite ecosystem maintainers refer to this concept as "inverting the workflow."
As for disadvantages, he notes that its current dependencies on other UI Suite ecosystem modules is less-than-ideal, but as each of the dependencies are at different stages of being added to Drupal core, this is likely a short-term issue.
Ugh - I figured I'd have to write this section, even though I knew it would not be possible to have a single "I recommend using base theme X" statement. Instead, here's my one-line opinion for each:
AI was used in the authoring of this blog post for the social media share image.