Group maintainers

lenny moskalyk's picture
farriss's picture

Dries Buytaert announced in his State of Drupal presentation at DrupalCon Atlanta that the Drupal CMS team is committed to shipping site templates in 2025 and invited the community to explore creating a marketplace ias well. This initiative is aimed at exploring this area.

Introducing the Drupal Marketplace Initiative

We’re exploring a big question:
Should Drupal launch a public Marketplace for reusable site templates?

The idea is simple: Imagine a curated space where you can browse, share, and contribute templates that help people build with Drupal faster, more easily, and with greater confidence. This could make Drupal more welcoming to new users and more rewarding for contributors.

But before we commit to that direction and certainly before anything launches, we want to get it right—with your help.

What’s in the MVP?

This Minimum Valuable Product (MVP) Proposal is a structured experiment targeted for launch at DrupalCon Chicago 2026. Key features include:

  • Up to 15 curated DrupalCMS Site Templates (free and paid), listed on Drupal.org
  • Initial participation limited to Drupal Certified Partners (DCPs) to streamline quality and feedback (expansion beyond DCPs may occur post-MVP)
  • Makers set their own prices
  • Purchasing flows (TBD), might be off-site for MVP
  • A 10% revenue share from paid template sales and upsell services is directed to the Drupal Association
  • Submission fee: $395 per new listing, with a $250 annual review fee (none for pilot and MVP)
  • Baseline standards for all templates include:
    • Accessibility (WCAG 2.2 AA)
    • Security and licensing compliance
    • Self-certified GDPR readiness (if applicable)
    • Documentation, maintenance commitments, and user support expectations
    • Regular feedback collection
    • Discoverability features including tags, badges, and demo previews
  • Templates must be built for DrupalCMS, using the Recipes schema, demo content, and XB-compatible themes
  • Templates will undergo automated and manual reviews, conducted by DA Staff (or contractors), with badges and trust indicators displayed where applicable
  • Governance and policy oversight by Drupal Association staff during the MVP; future transitions to community-hybrid models are planned

Is the MVP proposal good enough for now and safe enough to try?

The Marketplace Working Group has authored this Revised Proposal for Drupal Site Template Marketplace [initial draft proposal] based on the feedback received from over 500 community members received through real-time collaboration sessions, feedback surveys and slack engagement. Prior to its publication for comment, the proposal was shared with the Executive Committee of the Drupal Association Board as well as Drupal CMS Leadership team.

  • The Community public comment period was open from 29 June 2025 through 13 July 2025.
  • The Marketplace Working Group met on 15 July 2025 to review feedback and draft its final recommendation and proposal.
  • The Drupal Association Board reviews revised proposal for financial investment go/no-go on 24 July 2025.

What are the next steps?

  • Drupal Association Board decides whether to invest in the Marketplace.
  • If approved, DA Staff begin fleshing out technical approach prior to DrupalCon Vienna and identifying MVP Site Template Makers.

How did we get here?

A Working Group of Drupal CMS Leadership, DA staff, Board and community reps was asked to:

  • Explore the opportunity
  • Engage the ecosystem
  • And by DrupalCon Vienna, make a Go / No-Go decision on piloting a Drupal Marketplace

This process has not been not top-down. It was designed to be:

  • Open – anyone can follow along and contribute
  • Iterative – we share what we’re learning every week
  • Inclusive – input from contributors, agencies, DCPs, and end users is key

Over the last several months, we:

The Working Group has met every 2–3 weeks to synthesize inputs and make decisions.