Deployment Strategies
Lupus Decoupled Drupal can be deployed in two main ways: a unified deployment using a single hosting environment for both Drupal and frontend, or a separated deployment using distinct environments for each.
Separated Deployment
In a separated deployment strategy, the frontend and Drupal backend are deployed independently. This approach offers several advantages:
- Faster frontend deployments without dependency on Drupal maintenance windows
- Freedom to choose specialized frontend hosting solutions (e.g., serverless edge deployments or vendors offering simplified pre-rendering)
- Independent scaling and optimization of each component
However, this approach has some trade-offs:
- Additional complexity in coordinating multiple hosting environments
- More involved management of deployments, especially for features requiring both frontend and backend changes
- Increased operational overhead for maintaining multiple environments
For applying a separated deployment, please refer to the documentation of each separate system. For Nuxt frontends, some additional deployment documentation is provided here.
Unified Deployment
The unified deployment strategy offers a simpler approach by maintaining a single deployment process for the entire application. This strategy:
- Requires a hosting environment capable of running both frontend (e.g., Node.js) and Drupal backend services
- Simplifies deployment coordination and environment management
- Enables direct communication between frontend and backend services (e.g., cache or search servers)
This approach is well-suited for teams preferring the operational simplicity or simple projects. A list of unified hosting possibilities can be found here.
Frontend rendering modes
Modern frontend frameworks support multiple rendering modes which may be combined with both deployment strategies. By default, Lupus Decoupled Drupal uses a Nuxt frontend with server-rendering. Refer to the Nuxt rendering modes or the documentation for your frontend framework for details.