Project present and future

Key features in version 1.31

Release date: May 15th, 2025

Backdrop 1.31 (release notes) new features include:

  1. Allow Image Styles to be used with inline images with CKEditor #2658
  2. Provide CKEditor 5 Emoji integration #6772
  3. Allow attaching libraries, js, css with hook_theme. #6859
  4. Update CKEditor5 to version 44.3.0 #6788
  5. PHP 8.4 Support #6777

Features planned for version 1.32

Scheduled release date: September 15th, 2025

See the GitHub issue tracker for all 1.32 issues.

Goals for 1.x

All Backdrop 1.x releases will include new features that do not require API breaks. A subset of proposed topics are listed below. Please note: our priorities may change based on the most urgent needs of the Backdrop community.

General Goals

  1. A more intuitive administrative interface with every release.
  2. Improved the experience for those new to Backdrop CMS.
  3. Ensure that a transition from Drupal 7 is as smooth as possible.
  4. More TBD!

Specific Goals

  1. Automatic core updates (push-button core updates have been available since 1.11).
  2. Improved multilingual support (especially for RTL languages).
  3. More TBD!

Goals for 2.0

Backdrop 2.0 will NOT be released before January 15th, 2026.

Backdrop Version 1 will continue to be the active branch of development until at least January 15th, 2026. Backdrop version 1 will continue to be supported until Backdrop version 3 is released.

Backdrop 2.0 will include the removal of deprecated functions, and will most likely include changes in HTML markup which may require updates to themes.

The upgrade from Backdrop 1 to Backdrop 2 will be easier than the upgrade between major Drupal versions.

See the GitHub issue tracker for more 2.x issues for a set of proposed changes that cannot happen during the 1.x cycle.

See the summary of discussions that took place in early 2024.