Current Favourite Modules

Useful modules - this may well get updated

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

Access Unpublished: Easy to use module grants access to view unpublished content to anyone who has a unique URL and appropriate permissions. Visitor can be anonymous or authenticated user with the user role. https://www.drupal.org/project/access_unpublished
Admin Toolbar: Admin Toolbar transforms the default Drupal Toolbar into a drop-down menu, providing a fast access to all administration pages. https://www.drupal.org/project/admin_toolbar (Use with Gin toolbar - https://www.drupal.org/project/gin_toolbar)
Autofill: The Autofill module makes it possible to autofill the values from one textfield to another while typing. Once your field input was customized the autofill functionality will be detached. https://www.drupal.org/project/autofill
Better Exposed Filters replaces the Views' default single- or multi-select boxes with radio buttons or checkboxes, respectively. Description fields and Select All/None links can be added to exposed filters to make for a better user experience. https://www.drupal.org/project/better_exposed_filters
Blazy: Lazy load and multi-serve images to save bandwidth and server requests. The user will have faster load times and save data usage if they don't browse the whole page. A friend of mobile devices. https://www.drupal.org/project/blazy
CKEditor 5 Plugin Pack is an official set of free plugins extending functionalities of CKEditor 5 for Drupal, maintained by CKSource. https://www.drupal.org/project/ckeditor5_plugin_pack
Content Lock: When a user is editing a node, any other user that attempts to edit the same node will be blocked from doing so, and notified that the content is already being edited. https://www.drupal.org/project/content_lock
Content Readability takes the default body field on any node/block that has a configuration page and provides a readability score. This module leverages Dave Child's Text Statistics. https://www.drupal.org/project/content_readability
Did This Help Displays block with "Did this help" (is useful) question and Yes/No options. For "No" options are available list of ready answers and text field for custom answer; these answers are compiled in a system report. https://www.drupal.org/project/did_this_help
Diff: This module adds a tab that shows all revisions like standard Drupal but it also allows pretty viewing of all added/changed/deleted words between revisions. https://www.drupal.org/project/diff
Dropzonejs: Open source library that provides drag’n’drop file uploads with image previews. https://www.drupal.org/project/dropzonejs
Editor Advanced Link: Enhances the link Dialog in CKEditor https://www.drupal.org/project/editor_advanced_link
Editoria11y an accessibility too built around ongoing content quality assurance: checks rendered content automatically, detecting issues that only appear after Drupal assembles the page; it focuses exclusively on content issues, inserting alerts and tooltips to assist authors at fixing the things that are their responsibility. https://www.drupal.org/project/editoria11y
Empty Fields: This module provides a way to show empty fields that would otherwise be hidden. https://www.drupal.org/project/empty_fields
External Links is a small module used to differentiate between internal and external links. Using jQuery, it will find all external links on a page and add an external icon indicating it will take you offsite or a mail icon for mailto: links. https://www.drupal.org/project/extlink
Field Group: Fieldgroup will group fields together. All fieldable entities will have the possibility to add groups to wrap their fields together. https://www.drupal.org/project/field_group
Focal Point (using Crop API): Focal Point allows you to specify the portion of an image that is most important. This information can be used when the image is cropped or cropped and scaled so that you don't, for example, end up with an image that cuts off the subject's head. https://www.drupal.org/project/focal_point
Gin Login A nice login screen based on either Claro or Gin. https://www.drupal.org/project/gin_login
Image Effects provides a suite of additional image effects that can be added to image styles. Image Effects tries to support both the GD toolkit from Drupal core and the ImageMagick toolkit. https://www.drupal.org/project/image_effects
Image Widget Crop Provides an interface for using the features of the Crop API. This element provides an UX for using a crop on all fields images or file elements. This module has particularity to purpose capability to crop the same image by “Crop type” configured. https://www.drupal.org/project/image_widget_crop
In Other Words: This module provides field formatters for presenting lists of items in a more grammatical way and for condensing sequential lists into shorter text. https://www.drupal.org/project/inotherwords
Inline Entity Form: Provides a widget for inline management (creation, modification, removal) of referenced entities. For example, pictures, videos, or social media cards can be edited in the article form. https://www.drupal.org/project/inline_entity_form
Layout Paragraphs provides an intuitive drag-and-drop experience for building flexible layouts with Paragraphs. https://www.drupal.org/project/layout_paragraphs
Length Indicator: With the help of the module Length Indicator, you can add a colored length indicator to form fields. You can choose an area of optimal length and a tolerance, which will be added and subtracted to/from the optimal boundaries. In Thunder, we implemented the Length Indicator for the SEO text field. https://www.drupal.org/project/length_indicator
Link Attributes Link attributes widget provides an additional widget for the link field found in Drupal core. The widget allows users to set attributes on their link. https://www.drupal.org/project/link_attributes
Link Checker extracts links from your content when saved and periodically tries to detect broken hypertext links by checking the remote sites and evaluating the HTTP response codes. It shows all broken links in the reports/logs section and on the content edit page, if a link check has been failed. https://www.drupal.org/project/linkchecker
Linkit provides an easy interface for internal and external linking with wysiwyg editors by using an autocomplete field. Linkit has by default support for nodes, users, taxonomy terms, files, comments and basic support for all types of entities that defines a canonical link template. https://www.drupal.org/project/linkit
Material Icons access and embed Google's Icon Font - integrates with CKEditor https://www.drupal.org/project/material_icons
Metatag: allows you to automatically provide structured metadata, aka "meta tags", about a website. In the context of search engine optimization, the meta description tag and the meta keywords tag may help improve the rankings and display of a site in search engine results. In addition, the module provides support for meta tags (Open Graph Protocol from Facebook, Twitter Cards from Twitter) that allow control of how content appears when shared on social networks. https://www.drupal.org/project/metatag
Media entity slideshow: Slideshows integration for Media entity module - used for galleries. https://www.drupal.org/project/media_entity_slideshow
Media expire: This module enables you to unpublish your media entities automatically by setting an expire date. https://www.drupal.org/project/media_expire
Media Library Edit adds an "Edit" button to the Media Library widget that routes to the Media entity edit form. https://www.drupal.org/project/media_library_edit
Media Link Enhancements gives site owners much needed control over how media is linked and displayed. The module extends core classes to alter media URL and link generation and expands how media is rendered at its canonical URL. https://www.drupal.org/project/media_link_enhancements
Paragraphs Features: provides additional buttons between paragraphs to allow easier adding of a new paragraph to as specific position. https://www.drupal.org/project/paragraphs_features
Password Policy: Provides a way to enforce restrictions on user passwords by defining password policies. https://www.drupal.org/project/password_policy
Pathauto: The Pathauto module automatically generates URL/path aliases for various kinds of content (nodes, taxonomy terms, users) without requiring the user to manually specify the path alias. The aliases are based upon a "pattern" system that uses tokens which the administrator can change. https://www.drupal.org/project/pathauto
Rabbit Hole is a module that adds the ability to control what should happen when an entity is being viewed at its own page. For example, an image content type that's displayed in a carousel. Rabbit Hole can prevent this node from being accessible on its own page https://www.drupal.org/project/rabbit_hole
Redirect: The Redirect module automatically adds redirects if the URL of an article has been changed. https://www.drupal.org/project/redirect
Responsive Preview: The Responsive Preview module provides editors with a quick way to preview how their site's pages will appear at narrow and wide width dimensions on different devices. https://www.drupal.org/project/responsive_preview
Same Page Preview: Create, edit and preview content on the same page. https://www.drupal.org/project/same_page_preview
Scheduler: Scheduler gives content editors the ability to schedule nodes to be published and unpublished at specified dates and times in the future. Dates can be entered either as plain text or with calendar popups. https://www.drupal.org/project/scheduler
Search404 Instead of showing a standard "404 Page not found", this module performs a search on the keywords in the URL. https://www.drupal.org/project/search404
Search API This module provides a framework for easily creating searches on any entity known to Drupal, using any kind of search engine. https://www.drupal.org/project/search_api
Search API Autocomplete Adds autocomplete capabilities for Search API searches. https://www.drupal.org/project/search_api_autocomplete
Search API Spellcheck Results show: Did you mean [some suggestion]?. like in Google. Works with any Search API backend that declares itself to support the "search_api_spellcheck" feature. https://www.drupal.org/project/search_api_spellcheck
Simplify allows particular fields to be hidden from the user interface. This helps to de-clutter forms and present a more user-friendly experience to content editors. https://www.drupal.org/project/simplify
Simple Hierarchical Select defines a new form widget for taxonomy fields to select a term by "browsing" through the vocabularies hierarchy. Useful for complex and multi-level vocabularies. https://www.drupal.org/project/shs
Simple XML sitemap: replacement for the XML sitemap module for Drupal. Simple xml sitemap is lighter than XML sitemap in terms of resources and usability. Sitemaps generated by this module adhere to the new Google standard regarding multilingual content by creating hreflang sitemaps and image sitemaps. https://www.drupal.org/project/simple_sitemap
Slick: Slick is a powerful and performant slideshow/carousel solution. https://www.drupal.org/project/slick
Smart Date provides a more user-friendly date field, by upgrading the functionality of core https://www.drupal.org/project/smart_date
Smart Trim implements a new field formatter for textfields (text, text_long, and text_with_summary) that improves upon the "Summary or Trimmed" formatter built into Drupal core. https://www.drupal.org/project/smart_trim
Token: Provides additional tokens not supported by core (most notably fields), as well as a UI for browsing tokens. https://www.drupal.org/project/token
Type Tray helps sites with a large number of content types to improve the usability of the Content -> Add page. Offers a dashboard with grid or list of content types, grouping by category, custom icons and a description. https://www.drupal.org/project/type_tray
Views Bulk Operations provides additional features that are not available in Drupal 8+ core bulk form including batching operations and improved UI. https://www.drupal.org/project/views_bulk_operations
Views Data Export provides a way to export large amounts of data from views. It provides a display plugin that can rendered progressively in a batch. Style plugins are included that support exporting in the following types: CSV, XLS, DOC, TXT, XML. https://www.drupal.org/project/views_data_export
Yoast SEO helps optimize content in realtime around keywords in a fast, natural, non-spam way. Works together with the Metatag module. https://www.drupal.org/project/yoast_seo

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

Module Upgrader: This project is a command-line tool that should be run on your Drupal 8 or 9 site on the yet unported Drupal 7 modules in the codebase. It scans the source of a Drupal 7 module, flags any code that requires updating to Drupal 8/9, 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 version! Read the whole documentation at https://www.drupal.org/documentation/modules/drupalmoduleupgrader including tips on how to write new rules. https://www.drupal.org/project/drupalmoduleupgrader

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