Drupal Canvas Unveiled: What’s Next for Site Building (Talking Drupal Episode #518)

Staff Reporter

Source: Talking Drupal #518 – Drupal Canvas by Talking Drupal (September 1, 2025)

In this episode of Talking Drupal, Lauri Timmanee of Acquia offers an in-depth update on Drupal Canvas—formerly Experience Builder. The new React-based experience builder for Drupal sites focuses on usability, flexible component templates, and a developer-friendly architecture. A beta release is expected by October 2025, with a stable 1.0 planned ahead of DrupalCon Vienna. Canvas is already in production inside Acquia Source, which supports export to self-hosted Drupal CMS.

The Module of the Week is the Starshot Demo Design System (SDDS), maintained by Kristen Pol of Salsa Digital. Built atop CivicTheme, SDDS provides a WCAG 2.2-compliant atomic design system and ships with example components used in pre-release Canvas demos. Version 1.0.6 supports Drupal 10 and 11 and is already active on 79 sites. It serves as a visual testbed for identifying gaps and stabilizing Drupal Canvas ahead of its wider adoption.

Guests: Lauri Timmanee (lauriii, Acquia)
Correspondent: Martin Anderson-Clutz (mandclu)
Hosts: John Picozzi (johnpicozzi, EPAM), Nic Laflin (nicxvan, nLightened Development)

Reference: Talking Drupal #518 - Drupal Canvas, Talking Drupal (1 September 2025)

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