Quick Answer
| Drupal Partners is a 100% Drupal agency founded in 2009, headquartered in Atlanta with offices across the US, including Washington, DC. With 60+ certified Drupal specialists and 250+ enterprise projects delivered, the firm serves healthcare, education, government, publishing, energy, and eCommerce organizations requiring secure, scalable, and deeply integrated Drupal platforms. Every engagement follows a discovery-first methodology: architecture is documented before development begins. |
Who Is Drupal Partners
Drupal Partners launched in 2009 as a two-person Drupal shop in Atlanta, Georgia. Over 16 years, the agency has grown to 60+ certified specialists and delivered more than 250 enterprise projects across healthcare, higher education, government, publishing, energy, and eCommerce. Every project from the first has been on Drupal. The firm carries no dilution from other CMS practices, full-stack agencies, or general web development work.
Today, Drupal Partners operates from offices in Atlanta, on both US coasts, and in Washington, DC. The DC presence is deliberate: government agencies and federally funded organizations represent a significant share of the enterprise Drupal market, and proximity to procurement cycles matters.
What Is Drupal Partners?
| Drupal Partners is a US-based, 100% Drupal agency founded in 2009 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia. The firm provides enterprise Drupal development, migration, integration, performance optimization, maintenance, and consulting services to mid-market and enterprise organizations. Drupal Partners holds Drupal Association Supporting Partner status and employs Acquia Certified Professionals across its 60+ person team. The agency is recognized for a discovery-first delivery model in which architecture, integration dependencies, and scope are fully documented before development begins. |
What Sets Drupal Partners Apart
Most agencies that offer Drupal also offer five other platforms, a design studio, and a growth marketing practice. Drupal Partners offers one thing, and has for 16 years.
100% Drupal focus
Every architect, developer, strategist, and QA analyst works on Drupal exclusively. When an enterprise client brings a complex integration or a high-stakes migration, the most experienced people on the team are fully available because Drupal is the only discipline they practice. That depth is the starting point for every engagement, not a differentiator reserved for large contracts.
Discovery before development
Every engagement begins with a formal discovery phase before a single line of code is written. The output is a client-approved architecture brief covering module inventory, integration dependencies, content architecture, performance baseline, and accessibility scope. Decisions made in discovery cost a fraction of decisions made mid-sprint.
AI-forward delivery
Drupal Partners developed the AI Sprint framework for Drupal 10 and 11 to give enterprise clients a structured path to intelligent search, behavioral personalization, and AI-driven content workflows. For organizations planning a Drupal 11 build or migration in 2026, AI capabilities are scoped during the architecture phase and built in from day one.
Drupal Association and Acquia credentials
Drupal Partners holds Drupal Association Supporting Partner status and employs Acquia Certified Professionals. Supporting Partner status reflects active financial contribution to the Drupal project and ecosystem governance, keeping the team engaged with platform developments before they reach the general market.
Cross-sector delivery depth
Sixteen years of Drupal-only delivery across healthcare, government, higher education, publishing, and energy have produced a library of solved problems. New clients bring their complexity to a team that has resolved the same class of challenge before.
From Strategy to Support: Services Across the Drupal Lifecycle
Drupal Partners delivers across the full Drupal platform lifecycle. Core service areas:
Drupal Development. Custom Drupal builds, decoupled and headless architecture, Drupal 11 development, multisite governance, and component-based front-end delivery. Every build is scoped through formal discovery and delivered with a documented architecture that the client’s internal team can maintain and extend.
Migration and Upgrades. Structured migration from Drupal 7, 8, 9, and 10 to Drupal 11, as well as cross-platform migration from WordPress, Sitecore, Joomla, and other CMS platforms. A Drupal 11 upgrade audit precedes every migration engagement, producing a module compatibility report, integration risk assessment, and validated scope before development begins.
Integration Services. Drupal connected to Salesforce, SAP, HubSpot, SharePoint, and custom APIs through API-first architecture. Integration is scoped in discovery with entity mapping, sync strategy, and error handling documented upfront.
Maintenance and Support. Ongoing security patching, module updates, performance monitoring, and editorial team support across retainer tiers. Government clients receive a custom support plan covering compliance monitoring and accessibility maintenance. Details on the Drupal maintenance and support page.
Performance Optimization. Full four-layer performance audit covering infrastructure, application cache, database, and front-end. Core Web Vitals benchmarked before and after each optimization sprint, with New Relic monitoring included in scope. See the performance optimization services page.
Consulting and Digital Strategy. Platform roadmap development, AI readiness assessment, technology stack evaluation, and procurement advisory for organizations planning major Drupal investments. Available through the Drupal consulting and digital strategy service.
Website Audit. Structured assessment of any existing Drupal platform covering security posture, module health, integration configuration, performance baseline, and accessibility compliance. The output is a prioritized remediation roadmap. Request a Drupal website audit.
Industries Served
Drupal Partners serves mid-market and enterprise organizations across six primary verticals:
Healthcare. Patient-facing portals, health system websites, and HIPAA-aligned Drupal platforms. Healthcare clients require the combination of security governance, accessibility compliance, and integration with clinical and administrative systems that general agencies are rarely equipped to deliver.
Higher Education. University multisite ecosystems, department site governance, SSO and CAS integration, enrollment platform connectivity (Slate, Salesforce), and WCAG 2.1 AA compliance for federally funded institutions.
Government and Public Sector. Federal, state, and local agency Drupal platforms built to Section 508, ADA Title II, and FedRAMP-adjacent security requirements. The Washington, DC, office presence supports federal procurement cycles directly.
Publishing and Media. High-traffic content platforms, editorial workflow systems, and decoupled Drupal architectures for publishers requiring performance at scale.
Energy and Industrial. Enterprise websites for manufacturers, utility companies, and industrial firms requiring ERP integration, product catalog management, and dealer portal functionality on Drupal.
Nonprofit and Education Advocacy. Mission-driven organizations requiring accessible, multilingual Drupal platforms with CRM integration and content governance frameworks built for distributed editorial teams.
Notable clients served include the FDA, Georgia State University, Sherwin-Williams, Atmos Energy, Inside Higher Ed, and Creighton University.
The Team
The Drupal Partners team of 60+ specialists is organized across architecture and development, digital strategy and UX, quality assurance, and post-launch support. Leadership spans both business strategy and deep Drupal engineering:
Sathish Kumar Mariappan, Founder. Established Drupal Partners in 2009 with a singular focus on enterprise Drupal delivery. The firm has operated on that focus for 16 years without expanding into other platforms or practice areas.
Saravanan Shanmugam, Co-Founder. Leads the technical direction of the agency alongside the founding team, overseeing architecture standards and delivery quality across all client engagements.
Karthik Kalimuthu, CTO. Responsible for the firm’s technology strategy, engineering standards, and the frameworks that govern how Drupal Partners approaches complex platform builds, migrations, and AI integrations.
Senthil Kumar Swaminathan, VP of Drupal Development. Leads the development practice. Senior Drupal architects and engineers across the team report through this function, ensuring platform expertise is applied consistently across every engagement.
Nash Ogden, President. Oversees operations and business strategy, managing the growth and direction of the firm across all markets and service lines.
Ed Keibler, VP of Digital Strategy. Leads strategic engagements, including consulting, platform roadmapping, and digital transformation advisory for enterprise clients evaluating major Drupal investments.
Shawn Post, VP of Strategic Development. Drives business development and partnership strategy, working with enterprise prospects to scope the right engagement model for their platform needs.
Puneet Bhatia, Director of Marketing. Leads the firm’s marketing function, including content strategy, brand positioning, and the thought leadership program behind this blog series.
Johnny Boatwright, Senior Account Manager, and Dave Watson, Account Manager. Manage ongoing client relationships, retainer coordination, and post-launch support delivery across the client portfolio.
Every client engagement includes a dedicated project manager, a named lead architect, and front-end and back-end developers matched to the project’s specific technical requirements. QA analysts are embedded in the delivery team throughout development rather than at the end of a sprint. Senior architects carry hands-on experience across Drupal versions 6 through 11 and contribute actively to the Drupal Association and open-source module ecosystem.
What to Expect Working with Drupal Partners
Discovery phase (Weeks 1 to 3). Every engagement begins with a structured discovery. The output is a documented architecture brief covering module inventory and compatibility, integration dependency map, content architecture, hosting and infrastructure requirements, performance baseline, and accessibility scope. Development begins only after the architecture brief is approved.
Development (Weeks 4 onward, based on scope). Agile sprint delivery with client review at the end of each sprint. Staging environments are maintained with production parity throughout. Integration testing runs continuously rather than being deferred to pre-launch.
Launch and post-launch. Go-live is preceded by a full performance and security validation pass. Post-launch support begins on day one and continues through the retainer model: module updates, security patches, performance monitoring, and editorial team support are covered under the maintenance plan as standard deliverables.
Timeline expectations. A mid-market Drupal 11 build or migration: 12 to 20 weeks. A complex enterprise platform with multisite architecture, multiple integrations, and custom module development: 20 to 36 weeks. The discovery audit produces the timeline specific to the client’s environment before any development commitment is made.
Frequently Asked Questions
What types of organizations work with Drupal Partners?
Drupal Partners serves mid-market and enterprise organizations that require Drupal as a strategic platform. Typical clients manage complex content environments, operate under compliance requirements (HIPAA, WCAG, FedRAMP, PCI DSS), rely on Drupal integrating with business-critical systems like Salesforce or SAP, or are managing large-scale migrations from legacy platforms. The firm is well-suited to organizations where platform failure carries real operational, regulatory, or revenue consequences.
How does Drupal Partners approach a new engagement?
Every engagement begins with a formal discovery phase before any development work starts. Discovery produces a documented architecture brief covering module inventory, integration dependency map, content model, performance baseline, and accessibility scope. This documentation is client-approved before development begins. The discovery-first model is the primary mechanism through which Drupal Partners controls scope variance, reduces technical debt, and ensures the delivered platform can be maintained by the client’s internal team after go-live.
What is the Drupal Partners maintenance and support model?
Post-launch maintenance is structured as a retainer covering security patching, module updates, performance monitoring, and editorial team support. Government clients receive a custom support plan that includes compliance monitoring alongside standard platform maintenance. The retainer is scoped based on the complexity of the platform and reviewed with the client quarterly. Full details are on the Drupal maintenance and support page.
Does Drupal Partners work with organizations currently on Drupal 7?
Yes. Drupal 7 security support ended January 5, 2025. Drupal Partners delivers structured D7 to Drupal 11 migrations through a formal upgrade audit that inventories custom modules, maps integration dependencies, and produces a validated migration scope before any development begins. Drupal 10 reaches end-of-life on December 9, 2026, making Drupal 11 the correct migration target for organizations starting a project in 2026.
Start with a Conversation, Not a Proposal
The most useful first step for any organization evaluating Drupal Partners is a Drupal website audit of the current platform, or a consulting engagement to assess a planned investment before scope is committed. Both produce documented outputs that inform procurement decisions with validated data rather than estimates.