Why Joshua Mitchell Moved Off Drupal CMS and How Recipe Unpack Improves Composer Management

Joshua Mitchell shares why he moved his personal blog off Drupal CMS despite previously praising its editorial ease and SEO benefits. He originally rebuilt the site using Drupal CMS and Tome for static export but found the bundled dependencies excessive for a lightweight personal site. Mitchell critiques Drupal CMS for its opinionated defaults and module overhead, which often go unused in minimal setups.

He uses this reflection to introduce the new Recipe Unpack feature in Drupal 11.2. Recipes are preconfigured site templates, and unpacking them converts their dependencies into direct entries in the project’s composer.json. This enables a return to traditional, lean Drupal builds while retaining recipe-derived configuration. Notably, the drupal/core-recipe-unpack plugin works even with earlier versions that support recipes, like Drupal 10.3.

Mitchell's post strikes a balance between critique and actionable guidance, providing CLI commands and config notes for developers. His nuanced take warns that while recipes ease installation, they may complicate long-term project maintenance unless unpacked.