How is this different from Simplytest.me?
Simplytest is a great service. We were in fact inspired by it. If you have not tried it, you should try it out. Seriously. Here's the link. Drupal Forge is a community service - just like Simplytest. Here are the similarities and differences:
Does this only work with Drupal?
Yes, all of our site templates are varieties of Drupal.
You can also share your own Drupal apps / sites / recipes / distros through Drupal Forge.
Since the underlying platform is language/app agnostic, you can also create decoupled/headless apps and sites.
However, the mission of this project is to support the Drupal community so all apps offered here will be designed to work with Drupal.
How much does it cost?
Drupal Forge is offered as a community service. The 6-hour temporary disposable Drupal sites, with or without Dev environments are completely free.
If you created sites with Dev environments, then you can continue to use them... Your sites will auto-pause every six hours - but you can extend the timeout time, pause and up-pause, and keep your Dev environments for as long as you like. This is all Free to use for now.
This service, however, does costs us money to run. We plan to have our sponsors continue to pick up these costs going forward.
Where is my dev site hosted?
We've got you covered.
Drupal Forge hosts all your dev sites. You don't have to worry about it.
But, JFYI... Drupal Forge Dev Sites are run as containers in an auto-scaling Kubernetes clusters running on Digital Ocean, AWS, or MS Azure. Drupal Forge's infrastructure is based on a multi-cloud architecture. Dev sites are transient and can moves around from cloud to cloud.
Open Social
Open Social is a Drupal distribution designed for creating flexible social communities and intranet solutions. It provides a ready-to-use set of features such as member profiles, news feeds, notifications, groups, and events. Open Social is built to be scalable, customizable, and secure, making it suitable for organizations and groups to build their own social networks or community platforms.
This template is often used by nonprofits, NGOs, and government organizations to engage with their members and stakeholders in a collaborative environment.
Demo CiviCRM
CiviCRM is an open-source customer relationship management (CRM) software designed specifically for non-profit and civic sector organizations. It enables these groups to manage information about volunteers, donors, members, and clients effectively.
Demo Backdrop CMS
Backdrop CMS is an open-source content management system that forked from Drupal to allow for simpler management of website content and structure. It is designed for small to medium-sized businesses, non-profits, and educational institutions seeking comprehensive web solutions without requiring extensive technical expertise.
Demo Drupal 7
Drupal 7 is a version of the Drupal content management system (CMS), which was released in January 2011. It provides a platform for building and managing websites, offering features such as customizable content types, views, and extensive user permissions.
Demo Drupal 10
Drupal 10 is the latest major release of the Drupal content management system (CMS), following Drupal 9. It includes updated dependencies and new features designed to enhance usability, accessibility, and scalability.