The Problem with Headless Drupal and How to Fix It
Headless Drupal, where Drupal serves as a backend content management system (CMS) paired with a modern frontend like Next.js, has gained traction for its flexibility. However, it comes with significant challenges that can make it impractical for many projects. In this article, I’ll outline three core problems with headless Drupal and propose a solution—a Drupal-based Cloud CMS—that could address these issues while maintaining Drupal’s open-source strengths.
Problem 1: Mashing Two Tech Stacks Together
Combining Drupal’s PHP-based backend with a Node.js-based frontend, such as Next.js, introduces complexity. Developers often lack expertise in both ecosystems, requiring specialized teams for each half. Hosting compounds this issue, as it typically involves two separate environments—one for the frontend and one for the backend. This necessitates coordinated deployments, doubling the effort and risk of errors. While not insurmountable, this added complexity is often unjustifiable for projects that don’t require such a bifurcated setup.
Problem 2: Updating Drupal Is Hard
Drupal implementations often rely on dozens of contributed and custom modules, plus themes, making maintenance a nightmare. Core updates may be automated by some hosts, but contributed module updates are rarely covered. Breaking changes—intentional or accidental—can disrupt functionality. While Drupal CMS offers automated updates, the real-world complexity of many Drupal sites makes truly seamless updates elusive. This maintenance burden deters teams from adopting or sustaining headless Drupal.
Problem 3: Integrating Drupal and Next.js Can Be a Pain
Integration between Drupal and Next.js has improved with tools like DrupalX (https://drupalx.ai/) and various starters. However, these solutions aren’t turnkey, as they still grapple with the dual-stack problem. Setting up and maintaining both systems on a single machine or deployment pipeline remains a hurdle, limiting the appeal of headless Drupal for developers seeking streamlined workflows.
The Rise of the Cloud CMS
Cloud-hosted CMS platforms like Contentful have disrupted the market by offering managed, maintenance-free solutions. These platforms abstract away hosting complexities and technology stacks, providing intuitive user experiences and robust APIs/SDKs for developers. Contentful’s strength lies in its simplicity—content modeling and delivery are seamless, with no need to manage servers or updates.
The Opportunity: Why Can’t Drupal Do This?
Why can’t Drupal offer a hosted, maintenance-free CMS optimized for headless use? A Drupal-based Cloud CMS could solve all three problems for certain projects:
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Such a solution would appeal to organizations already invested in Drupal, leveraging its open-source nature as a competitive edge. Unlike proprietary platforms, a Drupal Cloud CMS would allow users to download their site and host it elsewhere if needed, balancing ease of use with flexibility.
The Million-Dollar Question: Can You Live with the Limitations?
A Drupal Cloud CMS would require trade-offs. Supporting thousands of Drupal modules at scale is impractical for a hosted platform serving numerous customers. A “base” platform with Drupal core and a curated set of essential modules would be necessary to ensure stability, security, and scalability.
The critical question is whether such a limited platform would offer enough utility to compete with solutions like Contentful. Could it attract developers and organizations exploring headless CMS options? For projects that don’t need the full complexity of a traditional Drupal setup, a streamlined, headless-optimized Drupal could be a game-changer.
A Personal Perspective
Having worked with Drupal for nearly 20 years, I’ve grown frustrated with its clunky Twig-based theme layer. Modern frontends like Next.js offer a superior developer experience, but integrating them with Drupal has been challenging. This frustration led me to prototype “Drupal Cloud,” a solution designed to address the problems outlined above.
Closing Thoughts
Headless Drupal holds immense potential but is hindered by technical complexity, maintenance burdens, and integration challenges. A Drupal-based Cloud CMS could solve these issues, offering a managed, headless-optimized platform that retains Drupal’s open-source flexibility. The question remains: can a curated, limited Drupal platform provide enough value to compete in the market? I believe it can, and I’m working on Drupal Cloud to prove it. Follow me on LinkedIn for updates as I develop this solution.
Integration of NextJS is very seamless with https://next-drupal.org/. I have managed a ecommerce solution based on above integration and worked quite well. Such integration are also provided by Acquia already fine tuned.
very curious where this will be going, as well as all the competitors (mossbo, nodehive, etc). I think hosting is definitely a challenge and so even though I do see the potential problem in the limitation question (mostly because the community is not very used to that) I think there is room for something like this and that it would help decoupled Drupal. Great work and great article thanks for sharing 🙏
That’s exactly what we built with www.nodehive.com - Hosted Headless Drupal as SaaS including frontend starters.