How open source distribution accelerates Drupal development time by 30%

Acquia released the latest version of Acquia Lightning, a flexible Drupal 8 distribution thousands of organisations are using to launch new Drupal sites and projects quickly.

Acquia Lightning offers new capabilities for developers, site builders, site managers, and marketers to build sites faster and deliver richer digital experiences.

As companies continue to elevate the role of content delivery across every channel, teams face pressure to build sites that are increasingly demanding.

They have supposedly turned to open source distributions such as Acquia Lightning to make building enterprise-ready, feature-rich sites faster and maintaining them easier. The latest version aligns Acquia Lightning with the recently released Drupal 8.7.

Acquia partner Igility Solutions turned to Acquia Lightning to incorporate advanced Drupal capabilities more quickly for the sites it builds for customers.

"Because Acquia Lightning is aligned to Drupal core's roadmap, using it provides developers with the best long-term opportunity to be more efficient when building and maintaining Drupal projects," said Igility Solutions CEO Brad Gronek. "We don't have to reinvent the wheel when using Acquia.

Acquia Lightning includes the following new capabilities:

• Acquia Lightning takes advantage of the industry's only fully accessible Layout Builder in Drupal 8.7 and also provides templates not available in Drupal core that editors can choose when creating or editing content. Layout Builder replaces the Panels and Panelizer modules previously available in Acquia Lightning.
   
• Additional out-of-the-box Layout Builder components, on top of what Drupal core delivers, supporting the use of Google Maps, slideshows, banners and other rich media in layouts.
   
• Enhanced media management, including a carousel widget that can be embedded on pages and a built-in tool to crop images.
   
• A preview of a new, improved, and an accessible administrative interface built on a design system consisting of visual and behavioural components and patterns, combined into user-friendly user interfaces.

Acquia Lightning has adopted Drupal's support for JSON:API, delivering out-of-the-box support for building decoupled or headless applications using a common standard.

"By bringing together modules and capabilities enterprise applications demand most, Acquia Lightning speeds up Drupal development time by 30 per cent or more and helps organisations get to market faster and maintain Drupal sites more easily while delivering more engaging experiences," said Acquia CTO Dries Buytaert. "Acquia Lightning is the best place to start a new Drupal 8 project, particularly on Acquia Cloud.