We make it easy to hire people online. Get a money-back guarantee, awesome workspace, clear terms in plain English, upfront bills with itemized PDF receipts.
All purchases (except Tips) are subject to a non-refundable Handling Fee of $3.49. This pays for platform overheads including admin, hosting, marketing, data costs and 24×7×365 support.
Got a Drupal project? Hire the best Drupal freelancers with the right skills and background in April 2025 to get your Drupal job done quickly. Schedule a consultation with a Drupal freelancer today. Read less
Drupal is an open-source content management framework (CMF) written in PHP, known for its power, flexibility, and security. Founded by Dries Buytaert in 2000, Drupal has grown into a robust platform used by millions of websites worldwide, from personal blogs to enterprise-level applications. It's particularly favored for complex, content-rich sites due to its modular architecture and extensive customization capabilities. Drupal's philosophy is centered around providing a platform where content management, user management, and site configuration are highly customizable and can scale with the complexity of the site.
How Drupal Technically Works:
Modular Architecture: Drupal uses a system of modules (similar to plugins) for extending functionality. Core modules provide basic features, while contributed modules can add nearly anything from SEO enhancements to e-commerce solutions.
Core Modules: Includes user management, content creation, taxonomy, and more.
Contributed Modules: Available on Drupal.org, covering thousands of functionalities from social media integration to advanced workflows.
Entity System: Drupal employs an entity system where every piece of content (like nodes, users, comments) is an entity with fields, allowing for flexible content modeling.
Fields and Field Types: Content can be structured with various field types (text, images, references) attached to entities, making content management highly customizable.
Views: A powerful module for creating lists and displays of content dynamically without custom coding, using SQL queries behind the scenes.
Theme System: Drupal themes control the look of the site. Themes are built with PHP, Twig (Drupal 8+ for templating), CSS, and JavaScript, allowing for deep UI customization.
Twig Templating: Introduced with Drupal 8, Twig provides a secure, flexible way to render HTML with PHP variables, enhancing both performance and security.
Configuration Management: Drupal stores configurations in YAML files, enabling version control and environment-specific settings, which is crucial for DevOps practices.
API-First: Drupal has moved towards being an API-first platform, supporting JSON:API for content delivery, making it suitable for decoupled applications.
Multilingual: Built-in support for managing multiple languages on a site.
Tasks and Applications for Freelance Designers and Developers:
Custom Website Development: Building from scratch or customizing Drupal to fit specific business needs, from blogs to complex corporate sites.
E-commerce: Using Drupal Commerce or integrating with other e-commerce platforms for online stores with custom workflows.
Intranets and Extranets: Creating secure, internal or partner-facing sites with complex user roles and permissions.
Content Management: Managing and presenting large volumes of content with custom taxonomies, workflows, and publishing schedules.
SEO and Performance Optimization: Implementing SEO strategies, optimizing database queries, and using caching mechanisms for faster load times.
Migration: Migrating content from other CMSs to Drupal or upgrading from older Drupal versions.
API Development: Developing RESTful services for mobile apps or other external systems that consume Drupal content.
Accessibility: Ensuring web applications meet accessibility standards using Drupal's inherent features and modules.
Custom Module Development: Writing custom modules to handle unique business logic or integrate with other systems.
Technical Principles of Drupal:
Flexibility: Drupal's architecture supports almost any kind of website or application, from simple to highly complex.
Security: Regular security audits, a security team, and a community-driven process for updates keep Drupal secure.
Scalability: Designed to manage content scaling from small sites to those with millions of pages.
Community and Open-Source: Benefits from a vast community contributing to its development, documentation, and modules.
Decoupled Architecture: Supports headless CMS scenarios where the frontend can be entirely separate from Drupal's backend.
Performance: With caching layers, optimized database queries, and support for CDNs, Drupal can be tuned for high performance.
Content Modeling: Allows for creating complex content relationships and structures, fitting for content-heavy sites.
Software Examples of What Drupal Can Build:
Corporate Websites: Like "AcmeCorp", where Drupal manages corporate news, employee directories, and document management with fine-grained access control.
Government Portals: Sites like "CityHall.gov" for public services, with multilingual support, user authentication, and forms management.
Educational Platforms: University websites with course listings, event calendars, and research publication systems.
Non-Profit Sites: For NGOs needing to manage donations, events, volunteer sign-ups, and complex content structures.
E-commerce Stores: A custom online shop with Drupal Commerce, handling product configurations, customer accounts, and payment integrations.
Resources:
Drupal.org: The heart of the Drupal community, with extensive documentation, downloads, and community support.
DrupalCon: Annual conferences for networking, learning, and showcasing the latest in Drupal development.
Drupal API Documentation: Comprehensive documentation for developers on Drupal's internals and APIs.
Drupal Modules: Over 40,000 modules available for extending Drupal's functionality.
Drupal Themes: For customizing the look of sites or starting from pre-designed templates.
Drupal Training: Offered by companies like Acquia, providing courses from beginner to advanced levels.
Books:
"Drupal 9 Module Development" by Daniel Sipos - A guide to module development for Drupal 9.
"Beginning Drupal 9" by Todd Tomlinson - For those new to Drupal or looking to understand its latest version.
Drupal Planet: A collection of blogs from Drupal contributors, offering insights, tips, and tutorials.
Stack Overflow: For specific Drupal development questions and answers.
Drupal's robust nature makes it particularly attractive for freelancers who need to handle complex client requirements, offering the tools to build highly customized, scalable, and secure web solutions. Its community support and extensive ecosystem mean there's always a solution or someone to help when facing challenges.
