Drupal to Astro Migration
Your Drupal Site Renders PHP On Every Single Request — Until Now
Why leave Drupal?
- Server renders Twig templates on every single request, burning CPU cycles your business already paid for
- Twig syntax locks your frontend team into Drupal-specific patterns that React or Vue developers refuse to touch
- Module updates break without warning — security patches cascade into layout failures your QA missed
- Lighthouse scores stall below 65 even after image compression, caching layers, and CDN configuration
What you gain
- Lighthouse 100 guaranteed in contract — Core Web Vitals pass before final invoice clears
- Zero JavaScript ships to your buyer unless your component explicitly imports it — default bundle is 0kB
- Pure static HTML served from CDN edge nodes — no PHP interpreter in the request path, no database queries
- Any frontend developer maintains .astro files in 20 minutes — React, Vue, Svelte devs onboard same day
When Astro beats Next.js for Drupal migrations
If your Drupal site is content-heavy — editorial content, documentation, marketing pages — and interactivity is minimal, Astro is the better migration target than Next.js. Astro ships zero JavaScript by default. Drupal sites with 10,000+ nodes migrate cleanly to Astro's static generation pipeline.
Drupal JSON:API to Astro data layer
Astro fetches content from Drupal's JSON:API at build time. Every node type becomes a collection of static HTML pages. Taxonomy, menus, and media are all fetched once and baked into the HTML. The result is a site that serves pure HTML from a CDN — no Drupal, no PHP, no database on the request path.
For documentation and large content sites
Drupal is commonly used for government and enterprise documentation sites with hundreds of thousands of pages. Astro handles this via build-time generation with incremental builds — new and changed content rebuilds only the affected pages.
The migration process
Discovery & Audit
We map every page, post, media file, redirect, and plugin. Nothing gets missed.
Architecture Plan
New stack designed for your content structure, SEO requirements, and performance targets.
Staged Migration
Content migrated in batches. Each batch verified before the next begins.
SEO Preservation
301 redirects, canonical tags, sitemap, robots.txt — every ranking signal carried over.
Launch & Monitor
DNS cutover with zero downtime. 30-day monitoring period included.
Drupal vs Astro
| Metric | Drupal | Astro |
|---|---|---|
| Lighthouse (mobile) | 40–65 | 100 |
| JavaScript shipped | 100–400KB | 0KB default |
| TTFB | 300–600ms | Under 50ms |
| Maintenance complexity | High (Drupal expertise needed) | Low (standard TypeScript) |
Common questions
How does Astro fetch Drupal content?
At build time, Astro fetches content from Drupal's JSON:API module. All node types, taxonomy, menus, and media references are fetched and used to generate static HTML pages.
Can Astro handle a large Drupal site (100,000+ nodes)?
Yes, with incremental builds. Astro builds only changed pages on content updates. For very large sites I implement a content hash-based build strategy so only modified content triggers rebuilds.
What CMS will editors use after migration?
Three options: keep Drupal as a headless CMS (editors unchanged), migrate to Sanity (better editing interface), or use Supabase with a custom admin (maximum control). I recommend based on your team size and editorial workflow complexity.
Is Astro suitable for multilingual Drupal sites?
Yes. Astro supports multiple locales. I map Drupal's multilingual content to Astro's i18n routing, preserving URL structures per locale and implementing hreflang for SEO.
Will Drupal's Views and blocks migrate?
Drupal Views are rebuilt as Astro components using data fetched from JSON:API. Blocks are rebuilt as Astro components. The logic is preserved; the implementation changes from Drupal PHP to TypeScript.
Ready to migrate?
Free assessment. We'll audit your current site and give you a clear migration plan — no commitment.
Let's build
something together.
Whether it's a migration, a new build, or an SEO challenge — the Social Animal team would love to hear from you.