LocalGov Drupal
LocalGov Drupal is an open-source publishing platform built and maintained by councils and suppliers for local government in the UK and Ireland. Its content tools cover subsites, news, events, alert banners, directories, service pages, guides, step-by-step pages, HTML publications and elections. Publishing features include reusable page components, patterns, styles, callouts, workflows, revisions, service contacts and shareable preview links. Optional governance tools support roles, permissions, moderation, approval dashboards, scheduled publishing, review dates and revision records. Councils can use Microsites to run many distinct websites from one platform; more than 50 microsites are live. The project supplies a base theme and sample Scarfolk subtheme, a quick-start install, modular architecture, automated tests and coding-standard checks. Drupal REST and JSON:API tools and the module ecosystem can connect it with forms, payments, CRM, case management, identity providers, mapping and directories. Its content and functionality are designed to meet or exceed WCAG 2.1 level AA. The software is free, but implementation requires development resources, appropriate hosting and ongoing security updates.
Who it is for
It is designed for local councils across the UK and Ireland, particularly those needing a shared publishing platform for services or multiple sites. It suits teams able to provide development resources, hosting and continuing security updates.
What is good
- Free, open-source publishing platform
- Tools cover council services, alerts and elections
- Microsites can run distinct websites on one platform
- Designed to meet or exceed WCAG 2.1 AA
- Automated testing and coding-standard checks
What to know first
- Implementation requires development resources
- Requires appropriate hosting and ongoing security updates
- Installation uses Composer
Verdict
LocalGov Drupal offers council-focused publishing and governance tools, with support for multilingual publishing and document management. Its free availability does not remove the need to plan for development, hosting and ongoing maintenance.
LocalGov Drupal plans and pricing
All plansCompared on government website builders
- Free plan
- Yes
- Accessibility standard
- wcag_aa
- Multilingual publishing
- Yes
- Document management
- Yes
- Multi-site support
- Yes
