Interesting Reddit Discussion on Multi-Site Content Management

Navigating Multi-Site Content Management with Drupal

Have you ever pondered the intriguing ways to publish content seamlessly across multiple websites using Drupal? The answer might be a click away in an ongoing Reddit discussion that has sparked curiosity and ignited insightful conversations within the Drupal community. 

Imagine a client seeking a unified content management system to handle multiple sites effortlessly. How could this be achieved without the complications of a traditional multisite approach? A loyal Drupal user with 15 years of experience in Drupal who claimed to be too entrenched in the ecosystem to seek an alternative solution started a thread on Reddit pondering this question. 

When a client needs a single CMS to manage multiple sites, they would 

"...login to AdminSite.com and be able to add / edit content which could be published to one or more of site1.com, site2.com, site3.com, and site4.com. The content would be built using paragraphs with each site using its theme to render in different ways."

This is not a typical multisite approach, as only a single admin area should exist. The user has experimented with a headless approach, using a single admin site that publishes JSON feeds consumed by individual sites. However, issues arose when dealing with content built using paragraphs, leading to delayed updates after content edits or unpublishing.

Another approach involved using a shared admin database, with the main site and individual sites listed in the settings.php file. While this worked for some functionalities, compatibility issues with contrib modules emerged, mainly related to caching, entity revisions, and conflicts with nodes on different databases sharing the same entity ID. 

The conversation unfolds with diverse perspectives and ingenious solutions active community members share. Some propose exploring the elegant resolution provided by next-drupal.org, while others vouch for the simplicity of Domain Access for managing multiple sites under a shared admin area.

"Domain Access is the simplest solution to have multiple websites with unique content but a shared admin site. I operate several such systems with 5 to 500 domains."

Are you curious about fully decoupled setups or the Drupal Domain module? Users in the discussion weigh in on these modern approaches, shedding light on the possibilities of utilizing JavaScript frameworks like React or modules like entity_share to address the challenge.

But that's not all—another user provided an intriguing solution involving the Domain module. The client can manage content on AdminSite.com, publishing it to site1.com, site2.com, site3.com, and site4.com. They are considering the Domain module for content distribution based on checkboxes for each domain. Additionally, the domain_theme_switch module may be used to select unique themes for each domain, ensuring distinct visual presentations.

A participant also chipped in an idea for another module, 

"More directly to your use-case may be the Entity Share module."

"You should investigate multi-site using next-drupal.org solves this problem elegantly."

 was a curious advice from another individual.

Another user weighed in with a unique method using the book module, where all content is managed through book menus, providing an alternative to regular menus. A user-shared success with simplesamlphp integrations for single sign-on centralizing user management while allowing content, features, and roles to vary between sites.

Adding to the discussion, another user suggested a stable approach using a decoupled setup with a main Drupal control backend site and multiple frontends consuming Drupal's JSON:API. This method offers flexibility for content variation and efficient caching on the frontends.

The discussion on Reddit provides a valuable exploration of various methodologies, offering insights into how the Drupal community creatively addresses complex content management challenges across multiple sites. To delve deeper into these diverse perspectives, check out the whole discussion on Reddit.

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