List of Top-Rated Drupal Distributions to Consider in 2022

Alwin Baden
3 min readFeb 24, 2022

Distributions are pre-made collection of utility tools that ease the web developers’ work by cancelling out the time needed to create Drupal websites from scratch. These are complete Drupal copies including Drupal core along with some additional software including theme or an installation profile. They are quite helpful in professional Drupal development services needed by business enterprises.

There are two kinds of distributions -

1. Full featured distributions- It provide everything that is needed for specialized use cases.

2. Other distributions- It comprise of quick start tools to ease the work of developers starting to create a website.

Reasons to Invest in Drupal Distribution

· You don’t need to scan through thousands of Drupal modules only to find a few that you really required.

· Configuring Drupal core is simple too as most part of it comes preconfigured.

· The features and modules integrated in a Drupal distribution are time tested, optimized and of perfect quality.

· Maintenance is simpler because updates for all modules and features is easily performed on one shot.

· Thus you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time, you save on time. Which also means, you save money.

· Now that you have saved time, you can spend it on customizing and personalizing components to tailor-fit your business requirements.

Major Drupal Distributions of 2022

1. Commerce Kickstart

It is a great distribution for businesses looking to build Drupal-based e-commerce website. Customized templates, themes and modules are specifically set to build an e-commerce website with simplicity. The new Commerce Kickstart also offers a demo store to serve as a starting point for new websites. It hosts multiple features like search configuration, analytics and reporting tools, marketing tools, promotions engine, payment options and a lot more.

2. Varbase

If you are looking to perform a lot of repetitive work, start working with Varbase. Its core objective is DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself), as it automates large volume of your work through the use of a vast majority of modules, features as well as configurations.

3. Panopoly

Another Drupal Distributions that is perfect to use as a base for a site is Panopoly. It is designed to be the foundation for site developing and also work as a base framework upon which to build other distributions as well as components. Open Atrium, Open Church, and Web Experience Toolkit use Panopoly.

4. Drutopia

If your website is highly scalable and you are looking for a distribution that supports the idea, Drutopia is a great choice as it supports several other distributions. It needs to be created using Composer. Scalability is also offered by Drustack’s highly customized environment.

5. Thunder and Lightning

These distributions are meant for the media and publishing industry. Thunder comprises of several handpicked publisher centric modules meant for professional publishing. It also provides custom regulations and makes it simple to install and use advanced functionalities, thus keeping up with adaptability and personalization. In addition, Lightning aims to support developers and editorial teams to build professional authoring experiences. A framework is provided that is both lightweight and documentation friendly for a smooth publishing work. Using Composer is suggested to build codebase for a project based on Lightning.

Wrapping Up:

Drupal distributions are perfect for businesses planning to get up and running quick and want to save time on the development and maintenance work. An all-inclusive module makes life quite simple. Just hire Drupal developers to make use of Drupal distributions straight out-of-the-box and build an impactful web presence.

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