Short answer: there is nothing to move to. Drupal CMS is a starting point for new sites, built on Drupal core, and once installed, drupal.org says, "it's a standard Drupal installation". An existing Drupal 11 site doesn't convert to it. It can adopt the parts it wants: Canvas, the new visual page builder; individual recipes; and the Drupal AI module. A Drupal 10 site has to reach Drupal 11 first for Canvas, and Drupal 10 ends on 9 December 2026. Before adopting anything, check your core version, your theme, how your pages are built today, and what you will let AI do.
What is Drupal CMS, compared with Drupal core?
Drupal core is the software. Drupal CMS is a ready-made project on top of it, "built on Drupal core" in drupal.org's words, aimed at "marketers, designers and content creators".
- 2.0, released 28 January 2026, was built on core 11.3. It made Canvas "the default editing experience" and added the Mercury component library, a first site template (Byte, a marketing site for a software product) and optional AI tools.
- 2.2.7, released 23 October 2026, is the current release. Its project file on drupal.org's code server requires Drupal core 11.4 and adds an installer.
- Its product owner was candid in a drupal.org Q&A on 3 February 2026: "it's still early", and there are "some big gaps".
Once a Drupal CMS site is installed, drupal.org's release notes say, it is updated "in exactly the same way as any other Drupal site". Our reading: there is no switch that turns an existing site into a Drupal CMS site, and none is needed. What it offers an existing site is its parts.
Where does each piece stand today?
From drupal.org's release history, read on 28 October 2026:
- Drupal CMS: 2.0.0 on 28 January 2026; current release 2.2.7, 23 October 2026.
- Canvas: 1.0.0 on 4 December 2025; current release 1.12.0, 25 September 2026. It requires Drupal 11.3 or later and PHP 8.3.
- The AI module: 1.0.0 on 9 January 2025; current release 1.5.1, 14 October 2026. It runs on Drupal 10.5 or later, or 11.2 or later. A 2.0 branch exists only as a development snapshot.
- AI Agents (which Canvas's AI features need): current stable release 1.3.5, 2 September 2026.
Each of those current releases is marked as covered by Drupal's security advisory policy. Development and beta releases are not.
Can my existing site use Canvas?
Yes, with conditions. drupal.org's Drupal CMS 2.0.0 release notes: "To use Drupal Canvas on an existing site, you can go right ahead and install it!" Then the conditions:
- Core and PHP. Canvas 1.12.0 needs Drupal 11.3 or later and PHP 8.3. A Drupal 10 site can't run it.
- The theme. "Not all themes are Canvas-ready so you will need a component-based theme to use Canvas effectively." Canvas assembles pages from single-directory components, code components and blocks. Mercury, the theme that ships with Drupal CMS 2, "can be installed on existing site (on Drupal 11+) and adapted for your branding".
- How your pages are built today. If they live in Layout Builder or Paragraphs, the same notes said in January 2026: "Canvas is planning migration paths from Layout Builder and Paragraphs, but these are not ready yet." Check the Canvas project's current status for your page builder before you plan around it.
Can I use Drupal CMS's recipes?
Recipes "can install modules and themes and set up configuration on an existing Drupal installation", and Drupal CMS 2's recipes can be installed one by one with Composer. One warning, from the release notes: "recipes do not have update paths, so applying a recipe to an existing site will not necessarily do everything it would do to a new site". That is true of all recipes. Apply one to a copy of the site first. On a site whose configuration lives in git, as ours does, the changes a recipe made are a diff you can read before it goes anywhere near production.
What does the AI part actually include?
Four different things share the word "AI":
- Drupal CMS 2.0's AI tools are optional, "easily configured via the AI assistant add-on". drupal.org's announcement lists page generation from a prompt, an admin chatbot, AI-written alt text and an AI dashboard, with support for three providers: amazee.ai, OpenAI and Anthropic.
- Canvas AI is a submodule of Canvas. In Canvas 1.12.0 it depends on Canvas, the AI module and the AI Agents module.
- The AI module 1.5, per the Drupal AI Initiative's own post of 2 October 2026, adds conversation memory, chatbots grounded in the site's own content, guardrails on what the AI outputs, and tracking of tokens and cost.
- The direction: Dries Buytaert's "AI roadmap for 2026" (11 February 2026) lists page generation from your own design-system components, background agents that respect editorial workflows, and "batch approvals, branch-based versioning, and comprehensive audit trails for AI changes". That is a plan, not a release.
The AI module runs on Drupal 10.5 and later, so AI does not require Canvas or Drupal CMS. Canvas AI does require the AI module.
What should I check before adopting any of it?
- Your core version. Canvas needs 11.3 or later. If you are on Drupal 10, the upgrade to 11 comes first, and it is due anyway by 9 December 2026.
- Drupal 12. It is due the week of 7 December 2026 and, per its alpha release notes, requires PHP 8.5. As of 28 October 2026 neither Canvas 1.12.0 nor the AI module 1.5.1 declares Drupal 12 compatibility. If you plan both, decide the order on purpose.
- Your theme. Component-based or not. If not, adopting Canvas includes theme work.
- Your page builder. Layout Builder or Paragraphs pages don't have a ready path into Canvas as of the January notes.
- Your AI rules. Which provider receives your content, what content may be sent, and who approves what AI writes. In drupal.org's own AI demo, "every draft waits for a human to review and publish". Make that your rule too.
- A copy first. Install on a copy filled from production, read the configuration it changed, then decide.
Do we run any of this on our own site?
No, not today. As of 27 October 2026 our own site runs Drupal core 11.4.11 without Drupal CMS, Canvas or the Drupal AI module. Its voice concierge uses elevenlabs_agent, a separate module our founder created and maintains on drupal.org, in its 1.0 alpha series. So everything above is what drupal.org publishes, dated, and not our experience of running Canvas. If that changes, this page will say so.
What does it cost?
Adopting Canvas or the AI module on an existing site is project work, quoted after an audit of the site: its core version, theme, page builder and configuration. The one fixed price we publish is an hour of the founder's time: USD 75. Today the engineer is the founder, so the work runs in business hours on Colombian time (UTC-5). To find out what your site would need, write to us, read our offer, or ask the concierge on the home page.