Drupal in Australia: revolutionising web development

A passionate community of developers in Australia supports the Drupal open source project. Discover why it’s a popular CMS choice and how to get started.

What is the Drupal CMS

Drupal is a flexible, open-source platform that’s free to install and run. It adapts to your needs, whether you're building a simple site or a complex application. It works across platforms, is easy to host, and can be seamlessly moved, giving you complete control over your web presence.

How Drupal works

With thousands of free modules and themes, Drupal empowers you to grow your site as your audience and goals expand. Its tools help you connect with users, boost brand awareness, and build a thriving community.

The latest version is also the CMS’ most accessible, featuring built-in multilingual capabilities to ensure your message reaches your audience effectively.

While other CMSs may be too simple or too complex for your needs, Drupal offers a middle way with modular combinations and connections that can be enhanced or extended with customisations.

The system of ‘nodes’ adds to this flexibility. Rather than a static page, a node is a set of related pieces of information, such as a title, author, date, and content. 

The layers that make up your Drupal site (the nodes, information architecture provided by menus, taxonomies and views, and theming) are separate, providing options for how content is shown to users depending on their goals, tasks and needs.

Drupal offers businesses and organisations:

  • Scalability to match their size and needs
  • Security features tailored to meet Australian data protection standards
  • Flexibility for diverse industries (education, government, e-commerce, not-for-profits etc.)

Getting started with Drupal in Australia

It’s easy to get started with Drupal. Installing and getting set up can take as little as an hour. That’s when the fun begins, though, because there is much more you can do with it.

There are plenty of resources available to get started with Drupal. As we mention below, there is also a large and very passionate community out there ready to support you.

Australian success stories with Drupal 

Higher education institutions in Australia typically manage large and numerous websites. Drupal is well-suited to scaling up to these Enterprise-level platforms.

Two of our university clients, Bond University and Charles Darwin University, have websites demonstrating what can be achieved with an open source CMS.

When it comes to government websites, Drupal not only provides scale and customisation but also creates stability and security.

Our client, Service NSW, provides members of the public with information and access to services and resources. We supply development and hosting services for this client, ensuring that every one of their hundreds of millions of users encounters a reliable website even in times of the highest demand.

Drupal development services in Australia

Our team of Drupal developers works to the highest standards and produces premium code backed by their decades of experience and knowledge.

Discover the full range of services offered at PreviousNext.

The Australian Drupal community

Drupal has an active and involved community in Australia. From contribution to forums and community days to conferences, there is always something happening and a way to get involved.

Drupal events

Each year, DrupalSouth takes place in Australia or New Zealand. This regional conference attracts local and international speakers and is organised and run by volunteers.

> Find out when the next DrupalSouth conference will take place.

In addition to the DrupalSouth conference, DrupalSouth Community Days and Meetups are great opportunities to get to know and support other community members in the region. 

Further afield, DrupalCon Asia returns in 2024. Taking place in Singapore, the event brings together those who develop and use Drupal from across Asia, the Asia Pacific region and around the world.

Drupal contribution

Our team members fulfil various contribution roles, including a Drupal Association Board member, a Drupal Core Framework Manager and Drupal Core Sub-System Maintainers. In fact, 80% of the team has core contribution credits. 

As an organisation, we encourage and support contribution, seeing it as a vital business model and a meaningful, community-minded attitude.

There are many ways to get involved, give back, and help advance Drupal. One example is Bug Smash, a community-run initiative to tackle the backlog of bugs in Drupal core. You can also join the #australia-nz Drupal channel on Slack, asking questions and offering support and advice to other developers.

Here are some blog posts to support and inspire you on your contribution journey.

The future of Drupal and how Australia contributes to that

Investing in Drupal now is an investment in the future. Drupal is growing and is guided by Drupal Starshot, a strategy to make Drupal even more accessible and quick to market for marketers and content creators. There are plenty of opportunities for developers and agencies in Australia to be part of this exciting new chapter.

At PreviousNext, we’re committed to supporting the Starshot initiative and will focus our efforts on the Experience Builder project. Experience Builder is a natural progression from our recent work on the Decoupled Layout Builder prototype and our extensive contributions to Layout Builder in core and contributed modules.

To learn more about Drupal in Australia and how it can help your organisation grow its online presence, contact our team today.