Custom Entities vs Core Entities in Drupal: When to Choose Each

Drupal developer Ismail Ansari has highlighted important considerations when choosing between using a Core Entity or creating a Custom Entity in Drupal projects. His recent LinkedIn post outlines the strengths and trade-offs associated with each approach, providing practical insights for developers.

Core Entities, such as Nodes, Users, and Taxonomy Terms, are built into Drupal and are ideal for content-heavy applications. They are quick to set up, work well with existing modules, and support views, fields, and permissions natively. However, they may lack the flexibility needed for highly structured or domain-specific data models.

Custom Entities, by contrast, are designed to meet specific project needs. They offer clean database structures, full control over CRUD operations, custom forms, routes, and permissions. While building Custom Entities requires more coding and planning, Ansari notes they deliver significant advantages in performance, scalability, and optimization, especially for enterprise applications and decoupled solutions.

Ismail encourages developers to evaluate project requirements carefully to determine the best approach and invites discussion on experiences with Custom Entities in Drupal.

For more information, visit Ismail Ansari’s LinkedIn post.