The Drupal Alternative Built for AI
Drupal made sense in 2005. Today it means modules, hooks, PHP theming, painful major-version upgrades, and zero native AI. Cosmic gives your team a modern headless CMS with a clean REST API, TypeScript SDK, and AI agents built in, so you ship faster and never touch a server.
Why Teams Are Leaving Drupal
Drupal is one of the most powerful open-source CMSs ever built. It's also one of the most demanding. Here's what teams consistently cite as reasons they move on:
1. Complexity and a Steep Learning Curve
Drupal's architecture, built around modules, hooks, entities, and Twig theming, requires deep PHP expertise just to make basic content changes. Onboarding a new developer takes weeks. Non-technical editors are often locked out entirely. The result is a content bottleneck that slows every team down.
2. Slow Development Cycles and Heavy Infrastructure
Every Drupal site requires its own server (or a complex managed hosting setup), a database, caching layers like Varnish or Redis, and ongoing maintenance. A simple content model change can require a developer, a deployment, and a cache flush. Cosmic runs as a fully managed cloud service with sub-100ms API response times and 99.9% uptime SLA, so your team focuses on building products, not managing infrastructure.
3. No Native AI Capabilities
Drupal was designed before large language models existed. Bolting on AI requires third-party modules, custom integrations, and significant developer time. Cosmic has AI built into the core: AI Agents that live in Slack, WhatsApp, and Telegram can create and update content, answer questions, and run scheduled tasks, all without writing a single line of code.
4. Costly, Time-Consuming Major Version Upgrades
Drupal 7 to Drupal 9. Drupal 9 to Drupal 10. These are not minor updates. They are full migrations that regularly take months, cost tens of thousands of dollars, and require rebuilding large portions of the codebase. Drupal 7 reached end-of-life in January 2025, forcing thousands of organizations through a painful upgrade cycle. With Cosmic, your API and content model never have breaking changes forced on you by a version upgrade.
Cosmic vs Drupal: Full Feature Comparison
| Feature | Cosmic | Drupal |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Headless SaaS, fully managed | Monolithic CMS, self-hosted |
| API | REST API with full filter, sort, and pagination | REST API (limited), requires module setup |
| TypeScript SDK | First-class TypeScript SDK + CLI | Community packages only |
| AI Agents | Built-in: Slack, WhatsApp, Telegram | Not available natively |
| MCP Server | Yes, native MCP Server for AI tooling | No |
| Schema Flexibility | Visual schema builder, no code required | Code + database migrations required |
| Hosting Requirements | None, fully managed cloud | Server, DB, caching layer, reverse proxy |
| Major Version Upgrades | No breaking upgrades, evergreen API | Painful migrations every 2-3 years |
| Setup Time | Minutes | Days to weeks |
| Free Plan | Yes, $0/month forever | Free software, but hosting costs money |
| Pricing (entry paid) | $49/month (Builder) | Hosting + modules + developer time |
| 99.9% Uptime SLA | Yes | Depends on your hosting provider |
| Multi-framework Support | Next.js, React, Vue, Nuxt, Astro, Remix, Svelte | Limited via decoupled/headless add-ons |
| Media CDN (imgix) | Built-in, global imgix CDN | Requires separate setup |
| Sub-100ms API Response | Yes | Depends on server and caching setup |
What Cosmic Customers Say
"Cosmic is: us never having to ask a developer to change anything on the backend of our website."
Maximilian Wuhr, Co-Founder at FINN
FINN, one of Europe's fastest-growing car subscription platforms, chose Cosmic so their marketing and content teams could move independently without developer bottlenecks. That's the freedom Drupal rarely delivers.
Pricing That Makes Sense
Drupal is free to download, but running it is not. Factor in managed hosting, a CDO, caching infrastructure, developer time for upgrades, and the modules you need, and costs add up fast. Cosmic is transparent:
| Plan | Price | Buckets | Team Members | Objects |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0/month | 1 | 2 | 1,000 |
| Builder | $49/month | 2 | 3 | 5,000 |
| Team | $299/month | 3 | 5 | 20,000 |
| Business | $499/month | 5 | 10 | 50,000 |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
Additional users are $29/user/month. No surprise infrastructure bills, no server costs, no module licensing fees.
Ready to Migrate?
We've written a complete step-by-step guide to help you move your Drupal content to Cosmic, including content model mapping, TypeScript import scripts, media migration, and a go-live checklist.
Read the Drupal to Cosmic Migration Guide
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Start Free on Cosmic | Talk to Tony
