New in Drupal 11.1
The first feature release of Drupal 11 improves the recipe system, introduces support for hooks written as classes, makes Workspaces more flexible and enhances performance.
Recipe system improvements
The Recipe system allows packages to be configured with dependencies in a repeatable way. Drupal 11.1 now allows recipes to take user input (for example, API keys for remote services). Recipes can now also use configuration actions to add new blocks, enable layout builder for content types, clone configuration entities, and so on.
Hooks can be written as classes
Drupal's unique hook system allows modifying forms, data updates, site processes, render structures, and even the ordering of other hooks. After long-running efforts by many contributors, it is now possible to also define hooks and hook implementations with object-oriented techniques that are more in line with modern PHP code design practices. This will also make Drupal's code easier to understand for PHP developers familiar with other projects. All runtime core hooks have been converted to object-oriented implementations.
With this new functionality, magic global functions like the following will no longer be needed:

function hook_entity_insert(EntityInterface $entity) {
// DO STUFF
}
Instead, developers can use the new Hook attribute on methods:

class ExampleHooks {

#[Hook('entity_insert')]
public function entityInsert(EntityInterface $entity): void {
// DO STUFF
}
}
New icon management API
A dedicated API has been added to allow modules and themes to define icon packs. Within each pack is a series of icons each with a unique identifier that the system can then use. Modules and themes can alter icon packs.
Workspaces user interface separated into its own module
As part of a larger plan to use workspaces for content moderation, the user interface of the Workspaces module was moved to a separate Workspaces UI module. For new sites, if you want to enable Workspaces with the user interface, you now need to install this module.
Improvements to the initial experience after installation
We revisited Drupal core's default configuration to better reflect most user's needs. In this release, date formats were made easier to read. The user registration process also now defaults to administrator-created accounts, in order to avoid new sites being flooded with spam accounts in the moderation queue. When creating a new node type, Drupal core will no longer automatically add a body field, allowing site builders to choose their own content model without having to delete defaults they don't want first and reducing potential conflicts for platforms built on Drupal core such as Drupal CMS and the upcoming Experience Builder.
New views entity reference filter
A new generic entity reference views filter has been added, which makes it possible to render exposed views filters as a select list or autocomplete of available entities. This may now be used by contributed modules and will be enabled for core entity types in future releases.
Render caching for forms
Forms built with form API can now opt-in to render caching, improving page loading performance in a variety of situations. We will be gradually opting forms into Drupal core into render caching, and may opt-in all forms to render caching by default in a future major release.
Improved browser and CDN caching for JavaScript and CSS
Drupal's asset aggregation algorithm has been improved to reduce variation in CSS and JavaScript aggregates. Differences between pages which may have produced different but similar aggregates in the past, for example because libraries were requested in a different order, will now result in a single file instead. This improves CDN cache hit rates and reduces the amount of JavaScript and CSS that visitors will download when visiting multiple pages on a site. This builds on several previous recent improvements to Drupal core's asset aggregation since Drupal 10.1 and also unblocks further improvements which are planned for future minor releases.
PHP 8.4 is supported
The PHP team is doing a fantastic job of improving the language and performance of PHP. PHP 8.4 was released in November, and Drupal 11.1 fully supports it.
Drupal CMS 1.0 will be based on Drupal 11.1
Drupal 11.1 will be the basis of Drupal CMS 1.0, which will be released on January 15 on Drupal's 24th birthday. Many of the underlying improvements introduced in Drupal core will help compose an improved user experience in Drupal CMS. The first release candidate of Drupal CMS was already based on Drupal 11.1 RC. Stay tuned!
Drupal 10.4 will be available soon
The next Long-Term Support (LTS) release of Drupal 10 will be released this week. Drupal 10 will be supported until the release of Drupal 12 in mid- to late 2026. Long-Term Support for Drupal 10 is managed with a new maintenance minor release every 6 months that receives twelve months of support. This allows the maintenance minor to adapt to evolving dependencies. And it gives more flexibility for sites to move to Drupal 11 when they are ready.
The same will happen when Drupal 10 is end-of-life and Drupal 12 is released: Drupal 11 will transition to Long-Term Support, with its own maintenance minors every six months. This release schedule allows sites to move from one LTS version to the next if that is the best strategy for their needs..
Core maintainer team updates
Since Drupal 11.0, Adam Hoenich has stepped down from being a Migrate subsystem maintainer as he moved on to be a key committer for Drupal CMS. We thank Adam for his contributions!
Want to get involved?
If you are looking to make the leap from Drupal user to Drupal contributor, or you want to share resources with your team as part of their professional development, there are many opportunitzies to deepen your Drupal skill set and give back to the community. Check out the Drupal contributor guide. You are more than welcome to join us at DrupalCon Atlanta in March 2025 to attend sessions, network, and enjoy mentorship for your first contributions.