Current Favourite Modules

Useful modules - this may well get updated
Image
Grim looking grey accommodation modules in club stack. Photo by Raphael Koh on Unsplash

Big Pieces

  • Gin Admin Theme: A radically new UI layout paired with goodies like a Darkmode will give your Drupal's Admin interface a facelift. The Gin theme also includes things which are currently out of scope for Claro and/or some customisations we're experimenting with for the future. Built on the foundation of Claro from one of the lead designers of Claro & Drupal Design System. https://www.drupal.org/project/gin
  • Content Moderation: Content Moderation enables you to have an editorial workflow. Editors can have different permissions for creating, editing and publishing articles. It also allows you to have a published version of an article, and have a separate working copy that is undergoing review before it is published. (CORE)
  • Paragraphs: Instead of putting all their content in one WYSIWYG body field including images and videos, end-users can now choose on-the-fly between pre-defined Paragraph Types independent from one another. Paragraph Types can be anything you want from a simple text block or image to a complex and configurable slideshow. This allows editors to structure an article into sub-elements, which can easily be created, edited, and reorganized. https://www.drupal.org/project/paragraphs
  • Media Library: The media library gives you an overview of all your media entities, such as pictures and videos. You can filter and search for them, edit them, and add new media. (CORE)
  • Update helper: The module offers supporting functionalities to make configuration updates easier. It's a combination of the modules Checklist API and Configuration Update Manager. The Update helper checks if installed configurations have been changed – if not, they can be updated. Otherwise you will get a message telling you that there’s an available update and what to do if you wish to have it. https://www.drupal.org/project/update_helper

AX and Content Management

Site Builder and Developer Modules

  • Antibot. Antibot is an extremely lightweight module designed to eliminate robotic form submissions on your website in an innovative-fashion. The module works completely behind the scenes and doesn't require any interaction from the end-users (no annoying CAPTCHAs!). The only requirement to the end user is that they must have JavaScript enabled. https://www.drupal.org/project/antibot
  • Audit files perform audits of your upload directory and the corresponding database records. It will cross check that all files in the database have a corresponding physical file, or it will check that all files in the upload directory have a corresponding entry in the database. This module can be helpful in identifying orphan files that have not been deleted when their corresponding node was removed. https://www.drupal.org/project/auditfiles
  • Autosave Form: The “Autosave Form” module provides an autosave feature for all forms. The autosave submits will be triggered every 60 seconds and store the changes from the currently logged-in user in the database. https://www.drupal.org/project/autosave_form
  • Coder checks your Drupal code against coding standards and other best practices. It can also fix coding standard violations for you with the phpcbf command from PHP_CodeSniffer https://www.drupal.org/project/coder
  • Coffee: Popup (via ALT-D) to quickly find common admin commands by typing a few characters (rather than using the menu). https://www.drupal.org/project/coffee
  • Convert Bundles adds actions to convert entities from one bundle to another. https://www.drupal.org/project/convert_bundles
  • DB maintenance optimizes administrator-selected tables in the database during regular cron.php executions. https://www.drupal.org/project/db_maintenance
  • Devel is a comprehensive toolkit that also contains helper functions and pages for Drupal developers and admins. https://www.drupal.org/project/devel
  • Drupal 7 to 8/9/10 Module Upgrader: scans the source of a Drupal 7 module, flags any code that requires updating to Drupal 8/9/10, points off to any relevant API change notices, and (where possible) will actually attempt to convert the Drupal 7 code automatically to the Drupal 8/9/10 version! https://www.drupal.org/project/drupalmoduleupgrader
  • Entity Clone adds an entity operation which allows to clone many of the entities (config & content) provided by the Drupal core. https://www.drupal.org/project/entity_clone
  • Fast Admin Permissions provides a responsive UI to filter permissions. https://www.drupal.org/project/fpa
  • HTTPS and WWW Redirect simplifies the process of setting a preferred URL and is designed for users who wish to enforce SSL and/or a specific domain without having to edit any files https://www.drupal.org/project/httpswww
  • Image Link formatter to allow an image field to be displayed with a link to a custom URL https://www.drupal.org/project/image_link_formatter
  • Key provides the ability to improve Drupal security by managing sensitive keys (such as API and encryption keys). It gives site administrators the ability to define how and where keys are stored, which allows the option of a high level of security and allows sites to meet regulatory or compliance requirements https://www.drupal.org/project/key
  • Keysave offers a quick form save via Cmd/Ctrl S https://www.drupal.org/project/keysave
  • Masquerade allows site administrators to switch users and surf the site as that user (no password required). That person can switch back to their own user account at any time. https://www.drupal.org/project/masquerade
  • Module Filter provides a tabbed UI and responsive UI to filter modules. https://www.drupal.org/project/module_filter
  • Production Check provides a comprehensive checklist and recommendations prior to putting a site into production. Also integrates with Nagios live monitoring. https://www.drupal.org/project/prod_check
  • Responsive Favicons adds the favicons generated by realfavicongenerator.net to your site. The responsive name comes from the fact that many devices are catered for including iPhone, Android, iPad, other tablets and desktops. https://www.drupal.org/project/responsive_favicons 
  • Security Kit provides Drupal with various security-hardening options and mitigation to reduce the risks of exploitation of different web application vulnerabilities. https://www.drupal.org/project/seckit
  • SEO Checklist uses best practices to check your website for proper search engine optimization. https://www.drupal.org/project/seo_checklist
  • Site Audit static site analysis platform that generates reports with actionable best practice recommendations. https://www.drupal.org/project/site_audit
  • Style Guide Provides a visual testing page for Drupal themes. Quickly compare the display of common elements across your themes, and verify that your new theme addresses all common style elements. https://www.drupal.org/project/styleguide
  • Security Review automates testing for many of the easy-to-make mistakes that render your site insecure, and generates a comprehensive, actionable report. https://www.drupal.org/project/security_review
  • Views Bulk Edit allows bulk updating of entity values via views bulk actions. By default it is configured for nodes but can be configured for other entity types. https://www.drupal.org/project/views_bulk_edit
  • Webprofiler adds a toolbar at the bottom of every page and shows you all sorts of stats such as the amount of database queries loaded on the page, which services are used and much more. https://www.drupal.org/project/webprofiler

Migration

Composer Snippet

'drupal/access_unpublished',
'drupal/admin_toolbar',
'drupal/antibot',
'drupal/auditfiles',
'drupal/autofill',
'drupal/autosave_form',
'drupal/better_exposed_filters',
'drupal/blazy',
'drupal/ckeditor5_plugin_pack', 'drupal/coder', 'drupal/coffee', 'drupal/content_lock', 'drupal/content_readability', 'drupal/convert_bundles',
'drupal/db_maintenance', 'drupal/devel', 'drupal/did_this_help', 'drupal/diff', 'drupal/dropzonejs ', 'drupal/editor_advanced_link' 'drupal/editoria11y', 'drupal/empty_fields', 'drupal/entity_clone', 'drupal/extlink', 'drupal/field_group', 'drupal/focal_point', 'drupal/fpa', 'drupal/gin',
'drupal/gin_login', 'drupal/gin_toolbar', 'drupal/httpswww', 'drupal/image_effects', 'drupal/image_link_formatter', 'drupal/image_widget_crop', 'drupal/inotherwords', 'drupal/inline_entity_form', 'drupal/key', 'drupal/keysave', 'drupal/layout_paragraphs', 'drupal/length_indicator', 'drupal/link_attributes', 'drupal/linkchecker', 'drupal/linkit', 'drupal/masquerade', 'drupal/material_icons', 'drupal/media_entity_slideshow', 'drupal/media_expire', 'drupal/media_library_edit', 'drupal/media_link_enhancements', 'drupal/metatag', 'drupal/module_filter', 'drupal/drupalmoduleupgrader', 'drupal/paragraphs_features', 'drupal/paragraphs', 'drupal/password_policy', 'drupal/pathauto', 'drupal/prod_check', 'drupal/rabbit_hole', 'drupal/redirect', 'drupal/responsive_preview',
'drupal/responsive_favicons', 'drupal/same_page_preview', 'drupal/scheduler', 'drupal/search_api_autocomplete', 'drupal/search_api_spellcheck', 'drupal/search_api', 'drupal/search404', 'drupal/seckit', 'drupal/security_review', 'drupal/select2',
'drupal/seo_checklist', 'drupal/shield', 'drupal/shs', 'drupal/simple_sitemap', 'drupal/simplify', 'drupal/site_audit', 'drupal/slick', 'drupal/smart_date', 'drupal/smart_trim', 'drupal/styleguide', 'drupal/token', 'drupal/type_tray', 'drupal/update_helper', 'drupal/views_bulk_edit', 'drupal/views_bulk_operations', 'drupal/views_data_export', 'drupal/webprofiler', 'drupal/yoast_seo'
Version numbers not included just so this document as some longevity.
 
Composer CLI (for D10 ready modules) 

composer require drupal/access_unpublished drupal/admin_toolbar drupal/antibot drupal/auditfiles drupal/autofill drupal/autosave_form drupal/better_exposed_filters drupal/blazy drupal/ckeditor5_plugin_pack drupal/coder drupal/coffee drupal/content_lock drupal/content_readability drupal/convert_bundles drupal/db_maintenance drupal/did_this_help drupal/diff drupal/dropzonejs  drupal/editor_advanced_link drupal/editoria11y drupal/empty_fields drupal/extlink drupal/field_group drupal/focal_point drupal/fpa drupal/gin drupal/gin_login drupal/gin_toolbar drupal/httpswww drupal/image_effects drupal/image_link_formatter drupal/image_widget_crop drupal/inotherwords drupal/inline_entity_form drupal/key drupal/keysave drupal/layout_paragraphs drupal/length_indicator drupal/link_attributes drupal/linkchecker drupal/linkit drupal/masquerade drupal/material_icons drupal/media_entity_slideshow drupal/media_expire drupal/media_library_edit drupal/media_link_enhancements drupal/metatag drupal/module_filter drupal/drupalmoduleupgrader drupal/paragraphs_features drupal/paragraphs drupal/password_policy drupal/pathauto drupal/prod_check drupal/rabbit_hole drupal/redirect drupal/responsive_preview drupal/responsive_favicons drupal/same_page_preview drupal/scheduler drupal/search_api_autocomplete drupal/search_api_spellcheck drupal/search_api drupal/search404 drupal/seckit drupal/security_review drupal/select2 drupal/seo_checklist drupal/shs drupal/simple_sitemap drupal/simplify drupal/site_audit drupal/slick drupal/smart_date drupal/smart_trim drupal/styleguide drupal/token drupal/type_tray drupal/update_helper drupal/views_bulk_edit drupal/views_bulk_operations drupal/views_data_export drupal/webprofiler drupal/yoast_seo