Drupal 10 – Entity Types, hooks, DI, headless via JSON:API, comparison with WP and Magento

Drupal 10 is a significantly more modern platform than its reputation suggests. The rewrite to Symfony components, a proper DI container, and a composer-first approach happened years ago. Drupal 10 adds PHP 8.1+ requirements, drops old dependencies, and has CKEditor 5 and Olivero as defaults. I show Drupal 10 through the lens of a PHP developer familiar with Magento 2 and Symfony.

Architecture similarities with Magento 2

Entity Types – Drupal’s equivalent of Magento models

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);

// Custom entity type - like Magento's own Model/ResourceModel combo
// but with UI automatically generated by Drupal

namespace Drupal\my_module\Entity;

use Drupal\Core\Entity\ContentEntityBase;
use Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityTypeInterface;
use Drupal\Core\Field\BaseFieldDefinition;

/**
 * @ContentEntityType(
 *   id = "product",
 *   label = @Translation("Product"),
 *   base_table = "product",
 *   entity_keys = {
 *     "id" = "id",
 *     "label" = "name",
 *     "uuid" = "uuid",
 *   },
 *   handlers = {
 *     "view_builder" = "Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityViewBuilder",
 *     "list_builder" = "Drupal\my_module\ProductListBuilder",
 *     "views_data" = "Drupal\views\EntityViewsData",
 *     "form" = {
 *       "add"    = "Drupal\my_module\Form\ProductForm",
 *       "edit"   = "Drupal\my_module\Form\ProductForm",
 *       "delete" = "Drupal\Core\Entity\ContentEntityDeleteForm",
 *     },
 *   },
 *   links = {
 *     "canonical"   = "/product/{product}",
 *     "add-form"    = "/product/add",
 *     "edit-form"   = "/product/{product}/edit",
 *     "delete-form" = "/product/{product}/delete",
 *     "collection"  = "/admin/products",
 *   },
 * )
 */
class Product extends ContentEntityBase
{
    public static function baseFieldDefinitions(EntityTypeInterface $entityType): array
    {
        $fields = parent::baseFieldDefinitions($entityType);

        $fields['name'] = BaseFieldDefinition::create('string')
            ->setLabel(t('Name'))
            ->setRequired(true)
            ->setSetting('max_length', 255)
            ->setDisplayConfigurable('form', true)
            ->setDisplayConfigurable('view', true);

        $fields['price'] = BaseFieldDefinition::create('decimal')
            ->setLabel(t('Price'))
            ->setRequired(true)
            ->setSettings(['precision' => 10, 'scale' => 2])
            ->setDisplayConfigurable('form', true);

        $fields['sku'] = BaseFieldDefinition::create('string')
            ->setLabel(t('SKU'))
            ->setRequired(true)
            ->addConstraint('UniqueField')
            ->setDisplayConfigurable('form', true);

        return $fields;
    }
}

Hooks – Drupal’s event system

<?php

// Drupal hooks - procedural functions in .module files
// Equivalent to Magento's event observers (but older style)

/**
 * Implements hook_node_insert() - fires when a new node is created
 */
function my_module_node_insert(\Drupal\node\NodeInterface $node): void
{
    if ($node->getType() === 'article') {
        \Drupal::service('my_module.article_indexer')->index($node);
    }
}

/**
 * Implements hook_form_alter() - modify any form
 * Equivalent to Magento's around plugin on form rendering
 */
function my_module_form_alter(array &$form, \Drupal\Core\Form\FormStateInterface $form_state, string $form_id): void
{
    if ($form_id === 'node_article_form') {
        $form['field_seo_title']['#description'] = t('Keep under 60 characters');
        $form['#validate'][] = 'my_module_article_validate';
    }
}

// Symfony EventSubscriber - modern alternative to hooks (Drupal 8+)
class ArticleEventSubscriber implements \Symfony\Component\EventDispatcher\EventSubscriberInterface
{
    public static function getSubscribedEvents(): array
    {
        return [
            \Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityEvents::INSERT => 'onEntityInsert',
        ];
    }

    public function onEntityInsert(\Drupal\Core\Entity\EntityInterface $entity): void
    {
        if ($entity instanceof \Drupal\node\NodeInterface && $entity->getType() === 'article') {
            // handle new article
        }
    }
}

Headless Drupal through JSON:API

# JSON:API is included in Drupal 10 core - zero configuration
# Enable the module:
drush en jsonapi -y

# Query content via REST
curl https://drupal10.example.com/jsonapi/node/article \
    -H 'Accept: application/vnd.api+json'

# With filters
curl "https://drupal10.example.com/jsonapi/node/article?filter[status]=1&page[limit]=10"

# With relationships (includes)
curl "https://drupal10.example.com/jsonapi/node/article?include=field_author,field_category"

<?php

// Consuming Drupal JSON:API from a Magento module (e.g. CMS content sync)
class DrupalContentClient
{
    public function __construct(
        private \Magento\Framework\HTTP\Client\Curl $curl,
        private string $drupalBaseUrl
    ) {}

    public function getArticles(int $limit = 10): array
    {
        $url = $this->drupalBaseUrl . '/jsonapi/node/article'
            . '?filter[status]=1'
            . '&page[limit]=' . $limit
            . '&include=field_category';

        $this->curl->get($url);
        $response = json_decode($this->curl->getBody(), true, 512, JSON_THROW_ON_ERROR);

        return array_map(fn($item) => [
            'id'    => $item['id'],
            'title' => $item['attributes']['title'],
            'body'  => $item['attributes']['body']['value'] ?? '',
            'slug'  => $item['attributes']['path']['alias'] ?? '',
        ], $response['data'] ?? []);
    }
}

Summary

Drupal 10 is a respectable modern PHP platform. For a Magento 2 developer the DI container and Symfony-based architecture feel familiar, though the entity system and hooks require learning new conventions. Drupal’s real strength is structured content management with complex editorial workflows – things Magento does not do well. The JSON:API module makes headless integration clean and standard. Worth knowing when a client needs content-heavy sites alongside or instead of e-commerce.