Case Study: Drupal achieves faster developer velocity and attracts new contributors with GitLab

Drupal Association eases entry for new committers, speeds implementations

Drupal, the long‑standing open source content management platform, decided to modernize its developer tooling and move its code collaboration from a patch‑based workflow to a modern merge‑request model. To achieve this, Drupal selected GitLab and its code collaboration platform to replace legacy processes while preserving Drupal’s unique many‑to‑one collaboration patterns, maintainer approval flow, and contribution credit.

GitLab implemented a merge request workflow along with inline editing, code review, and a familiar toolchain to reduce administrivia and lower barriers for new contributors. As a result, Drupal expects accelerated developer velocity and increased contributor growth — important for a project that saw 111,783 people contribute in the past year — while retaining the project’s established collaboration practices.

Drupal

Timothy Lehnen

Chief Technology Officer