This week, 1,400 Drupal enthusiasts gathered in Portland, Oregon for DrupalCon North America, where Dries Buytaert delivered the highly anticipated "DriesNote" keynote. This year’s address drew inspiration from President John F. Kennedy's "Moonshot" speech, highlighting the ambitious new initiative, Drupal Starshot.

Drupal has long been recognized for its low-code capabilities, but with competitors advancing in this space, Drupal must evolve to remain accessible and powerful. The keynote introduced Drupal Starshot, a "Moonshot" project aimed at creating a more user-friendly and accessible Drupal experience. This initiative is set to revolutionize Drupal by launching a second official version, temporarily named "Drupal CMS", built on Drupal Core and common contributed modules.

A prototype for the Drupal download page showcases two options: "Drupal CMS" for general use and "Drupal Core" for custom development, with the former being the recommended starting point. Drupal Starshot promises a superior out-of-the-box experience, enabling ambitious site builders to create and extend websites using pre-packaged recipes directly from their browsers.

The development of Drupal Starshot is the result of collaborative brainstorming with Drupal Core Committers, the Drupal Association, Acquia, and various Drupal agencies. Implementation will leverage the Project Browser, Recipes, and Experience Builder initiatives. A prototype was recently showcased, with plans to launch the first version within eight months.

With Starshot, you gain access to useful content types already set up for translation, meta tags, pretty URLs, moderation, and scheduling. It includes a standard set of media types with enhancements like setting an image's focal point and better linking to uploaded documents. The platform offers a robust system for building web forms with anti-spam protection and a significantly improved administrative experience thanks to the Gin theme and Navigation and Coffee modules. Additional features include an XML site map, improved date and time fields, the ability to set up redirects, better file handling, content cloning, version comparison, and sample content to help you get started.

This one command will install Starshot and open it in a web browser for you to play with. You'll get all the modules and themes listed below, pre-configured.

If you use DDEV, you can get Starshot up and running with this:

DrupalCon saw hundreds pledging support for Starshot, and two well-attended "super BoFs" sessions further spurred community involvement. Interested contributors are encouraged to register their interest and join the discussion on Drupal Slack’s #Starshot channel.

Complementing the technical strides, Drupal has also launched a bold marketing strategy and brand refresh. This initiative aims to modernize and unify Drupal’s visual identity, making it more vibrant and appealing to newcomers. The brand refresh includes updated guidelines and a comprehensive marketing toolkit available on Drupal.org.

Buytaert invoked Kennedy’s words to emphasize the ambitious spirit of Drupal Starshot. This initiative is more than a technological upgrade; it signifies a shift in how the community innovates and collaborates, aiming to make the Open Web accessible to all.

The overwhelming positive feedback from DrupalCon has reinforced Buytaert’s commitment to this mission. Drupal Starshot is poised to be a testament to the Drupal community’s strength and creativity, charting a bold path for the future.

• Address
• Antibot
• Coffee
• Diff
• Focal Point
• Geolocation Field
• Gin
• Gin Toolbar
• Honeypot
• Linkit
• Media Entity Download
• Media File Delete
• Metatag
• Pathauto
• Quick Node Clone
• Redirect
• Simple Add More
• Scheduler
• Simple Sitemap
• Smart Date
• Type Tray
• ULI Custom Workflow
• Webform

...and, of course, Drush.