A Quick Dive into Driesnote 2025 from DrupalCon Atlanta

At DrupalCon Atlanta 2025, Dries didn’t just deliver a keynote. He laid down a strategic blueprint — and a challenge.

The most-anticipated keynote by Dries Buytaert aka Driesnote happened some time ago on a grand stage at Hyatt Regency during DrupalCon Atlanta 2025. 

Last year, around the same time at DrupalCon Portland 2024 Dries Buytaert announced the ambitious Drupal CMS. Eight months down the line, Drupal CMS 1.0 came to the users. Dries recalls although they were able to meet the deadline, it was not an easy process. At Portland, his mind was chaotic about the future of Drupal CMS but the hundreds of people that stepped in made it happen.

The idea of Drupal CMS is simple;

"The best of Drupal made EASY!"

Because when Drupal wins at something, the world takes notice. Dries recalls a discussion he had with Matt Mullenweg of WordPress about the success of the Recipes system and how Matt loved it.

"The Open Web needs us!"

reiterates Dries. He also adds that decline is a choice. It is a comfort zone that will carve any good creation away, there should always be a necessity to innovate. Before getting to the core themes of his talk, Dries took a moment of his time to thank all the contributors who made Drupal CMS a reality. Drupal is and has always been beyond code.

Since DrupalCon Portland, Drupal has made steady progress on the marketing front.

What's Next?

To empower marketers and content creators, Drupal has introduced a detailed Drupal CMS marketing deck focused on usability and accessibility. This resource highlights key features such as a modern interface, customizable dashboards, intuitive navigation, and search-powered efficiency. It is designed to help makers clearly communicate the benefits of Drupal CMS to a wider audience, with a focus on practical tools and user-friendly management.

Regarding Experience Builder, The alpha version of Experience Builder (XB) is available now, with version 1.0 planned for release alongside Drupal CMS 2.0 at DrupalCon Vienna. Developers can try it today via GitHub.

At the center of Driesnote 2025, was a quiet but direct shift in tone. For over two decades, Drupal has thrived on a clear promise: flexibility. That promise has attracted developers, enterprises, and governments alike. With its robust architecture and modular design, Drupal has positioned itself as the CMS for high-stakes, high-complexity needs.

Flexibility, he acknowledged, is no longer enough.

In a keynote that blended personal storytelling with strategic direction, Dries outlined Drupal’s next phase. This is not a reinvention of what Drupal stands for, but a rethink of how it is delivered, discovered, and adopted. Dries sadly recollects that even being a leading enterprise CMS, the global launch of Drupal CMS 1.0 was not covered by any major technological media

The future roadmap raises real questions about who Drupal is for, how it grows, and whether the project can scale further without changing its shape.

A Familiar Analogy with New Urgency

Dries returned to a metaphor he’s used before: LEGO. Like Drupal, LEGO began with open-ended parts — bricks that could become anything. Over time, it evolved into themed kits and eventually expansive worlds like LEGO Star Wars.

But this time, the comparison wasn’t nostalgic. It was strategic.

LEGO nearly collapsed chasing complexity that users didn’t ask for. What brought it back was a recommitment to what worked: bricks, structure, and imagination made accessible. That, Dries said, is where Drupal finds itself today. The bricks are here. The kits — now known as recipes — are in place. But the “worlds” are still missing.

“For 24 years, Drupal has been this collection of powerful, flexible modules, very much like LEGO's bricks.”

Site Templates: Structure With Speed

The headline announcement from Dries was the introduction of site templates in Drupal CMS 2.0.

Templates go beyond recipes. They bundle together modules, configuration, theming, and actual demo content. For example, a real estate template might include a property content type, SEO defaults, a matching theme, and a set of listings ready to browse.

These templates are designed to work seamlessly with Drupal’s Experience Builder, a visual interface that allows drag-and-drop site assembly. Combined, the two provide a dramatically faster on-ramp for users. Where Drupal has historically required hours or days to set up even a basic site, templates paired with Experience Builder aim to make “something usable in minutes” the new standard.

This is not about turning Drupal into a no-code tool. It’s about making it easier to start, especially for people who don’t have the time or expertise to build from scratch.

Dries made it clear: this isn't a proof-of-concept. It’s a roadmap. The ambition is to offer hundreds of templates for every kind of site — nonprofit, publishing, education, advocacy, real estate, and more.

“With Drupal recipes, you can build something in minutes that used to take hours or days.”

Shelf Space and the Marketplace

Even the best templates won’t help if users can’t find them. That led Dries to the second major idea: a marketplace.

He pointed to Webflow and Shopify, where users can browse by category, demo sites, and launch with a click. These marketplaces give new users confidence and inspiration. Drupal, despite its power, lacks this kind of entry point.

A Drupal marketplace would provide that shelf space. It would allow users to browse, compare, and install templates directly without friction. And more importantly, it would let people see what Drupal can actually do, not just what it claims to be capable of.

“You can have the best product in the world, but if no one knows about it, your product won’t survive.”

As Dries put it simply:  

“Seeing is believing.”

Commercial Templates: An Open Debate

The boldest idea in the keynote wasn’t technical. It was cultural.

Dries asked the community to seriously consider allowing commercial templates within the marketplace.

The rationale is clear. Paid templates could drive higher-quality contributions, support contributors financially, and offer revenue-sharing opportunities that strengthen the Drupal Association and the project itself. Many organizations are already paying for templates, they just do it off-platform through agencies or contractors. Bringing that energy into the official ecosystem could make it more visible and more accessible.

But Dries also acknowledged the risks. 

Would commercial templates create inequality between contributors? Would it undermine Drupal’s ethos of openness and shared effort?

Rather than push a solution, he framed it as an open discussion. A working group has already begun exploring the issue. Dozens of questions have been raised, spanning feasibility, governance, sustainability, and culture.

One thing, Dries said, is not up for debate:  

Growth Without Compromise

Dries was clear on another point. This isn’t about chasing a lower tier of users. It’s about meeting people where they are. Many organizations don’t need a blank slate. They need a head start. Templates offer that — without locking them in or limiting what Drupal can do later.

This is about expanding Drupal’s reach without weakening its value. For agencies, it could mean faster onboarding, better client demos, or even new revenue streams. For the broader ecosystem, it could mean more people using Drupal, contributing back, and growing with the platform.

“Hopefully these users will then graduate from buying a quick and simple site template to doing more with Drupal.”

A Final Lesson From LEGO

To close, Dries told the story of LEGO Universe — an ambitious but failed attempt to bring LEGO into a digital world. The product was polished but bloated. It took too long to load, too much power to run, and ultimately failed to capture the user’s imagination.

Meanwhile, Minecraft — raw, simple, and instantly usable — took off.

The lesson was clear. Don’t over-engineer. Don’t aim for perfection. Build what users want and make it easy to access.

“We shouldn’t let perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Drupal, Dries said, shouldn’t fall into the LEGO Universe trap. It should stay focused on users, usability, and momentum.

In summary, the Driesnote didn't feature a single release or finished product this year, it laid out a strategy.Drupal isn’t changing its identity. It’s changing its approach. Templates, Experience Builder, and a possible marketplace are part of a bigger shift, one focused on visibility, usability, and structured growth.

Dries left the audience with a question, not an answer:  

“Do we need a marketplace? And if so, what shape does it take?”

For the discussion on this topic, a BoF session will happen tomorrow at DrupalCon Atlanta, after that many surveys and discussions swill be organized alone. Dries hope to reach a decision by DrupalCon Vienna 2025.

Drupal has the components. The next move is deciding how to package them, present them, and put them in the hands of more people.

"We already introduced recipes in Drupal CMS 1.0. We’ll have site templates in Drupal CMS 2.0. And hopefully, we’ll have a marketplace in the future.”

The bricks are already here. The challenge now is to build something more.

If you are at Atlanta, join the discussion tomorrow,