Easy, Fast, and Free!

Launch sites in < 5 seconds!

Demo, Develop, and Deploy.

Share recipes and templates.

Free for 30 days.

CivicTheme: Higher Ed

CivicTheme: Higher Ed is a modern, accessibility-first Drupal theme designed specifically for universities, colleges, and educational institutions. It delivers a structured, scalable design system that supports complex academic content while maintaining clarity, usability, and brand consistency.

Built to handle the needs of higher education organizations, this template supports structured content for departments, faculties, courses, research initiatives, news, events, and student resources. It emphasizes intuitive navigation, strong information architecture, and responsive layouts that work seamlessly across devices.

Key Features

• Accessibility-first design aligned with public sector standards
• Structured content for faculties, programs, and departments
• Event, news, and research content modeling
• Scalable navigation for large institutions
• Mobile-responsive and performance-focused
• Flexible design system for institutional branding

This template demonstrates how Drupal can power a full-scale university digital platform -- from prospective student engagement to academic program management.

You can view the official CivicTheme Higher Education reference implementation at:
https://higher-education-university.civictheme.io

Launch this template instantly in a cloud development environment to explore and customize it -- no local setup required.

Frequently asked questions

What does Drupal Forge do?
Drupal forge


Drupal Forge spins up pre-configured sites for you. Each site configuration is called a template. You provide some basic information and Drupal Forge sends you a link when your site is ready.

If you choose to include a dev environment, our partner DevPanel will provide a complete cloud development environment for you.

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. 

How is Drupal Forge associated with Starshot?

Our goal is to be a platform where competing vendors can work together on a unified launch experience. This aligns with the Starshot goal of bringing vendors together to build a common Drupal product for non-technical users. We are in talks with the Drupal Association to align our work with Drupal launch button in the Starshot wireframes.

Can I deploy to production hosting?

Yes. You can deploy your Dev sites to any production hosting provider of your choice. Check out the video(s) under the How-To section. (click here) Contact us if you need help.

How is this different from Tugboat?

You can't really compare Tugboat to Drupal Forge (DF). It's like comparing Apples to Oranges. 

SimplyTest.me is a service built on Tugboat. Drupal Forge is a service built on DevPanel.

If you want to compare Tugboat to something, you can compare it to DevPanel. 

The details of that comparison, however, are beyond the scope of this FAQ, so we'll just leave it at that.

How is this different from GitPod?

GitPod is awesome. Drupal Forge (DF) is very similar to it in many ways. Here are the similarities and differences:

  1. Like GitPod, DF Cloud Dev Environments (CDE) give you VS Code and let you create Drupal Dev sites.
  2. Like GitPod, you can instantly preview your code changes without committing your code.
  3. Like GitPod, you can un-pause your sites and continue where you left off.
  4. Unlike GitPod, you can create as many Drupal Dev environments as you like.
  5. On DF, Dev sites can be saved for as long as you like for free.
  6. On DF, there's no time limit on how many hours a free Dev site is used (active) in a month.
  7. On DF, the browser-based VS Code IDE (aka Cloud IDE), comes pre-installed with Composer and Drush. 
  8. On DF, you get full access to the MySQL database with PhpMyAdmin - a browser-based db admin tool.
  9. On DF, you can invite and collaborate with other developers for parallel programming.
  10. On DF, you can download your site and use it on your Local Dev Environment.
  11. On DF, you can go live with your site - deploy it to your Digital Ocean or Light Sail server and connect your custom URL to it. After that, you can use your DF site as your Dev site.
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:

  1. Like Simplytest, Drupal Forge (DF) lets you create 6 hour temporary disposable Drupal Dev sites.
  2. On DF, you can optionally add a Cloud Dev Environment (CDE) to your Drupal Dev sites.
  3. With a CDE, your Dev sites are automatically paused at after 6-hours instead of getting deleted. 
  4. You can un-pause your sites and continue where you left off.
  5. You can keep extending the working life of your Dev sites (in increments of 6 hours).
  6. With a CDE, you get a browser-based VS Code IDE (aka Cloud IDE), pre-installed with Composer and Drush. 
  7. Full access to the MySQL database with PhpMyAdmin - a browser-based db admin tool.
  8. Invite and collaborate with other developers on the Code IDE - think parallel programming.
  9. Download your site and use it on your Local Dev Environment.
  10. Go live with your site - deploy it to an external server on Digital Ocean, Light Sail, etc. Connect your custom URL to it. Maintain the Dev site on DF. 
How is this different from DevPanel?

Drupal Forge is built on DevPanel. 

However, Drupal Forge uses a very limited version of DevPanel with only its basic features.

You can check out DevPanel's website to learn more about it if you like.

 

How does Drupal Forge support Drupal contributors?

Drupal contributors can use Drupal Forge to try Drupal, experiment with new modules, test bugs, try out bug fixes, and to contribute code back to the Drupal project. 

You can use it to teach Drupal development and VS Code to others.

You can collaborate with other developers from around the world - in real time.

Can I share my own app through Drupal Forge?

Yes. You can share your own Drupal app / recipe / sites through Drupal Forge, please contact us. You can share your apps for free for a fee. You can provide production hosting for your apps through Drupal Forge as well and you can collect monthly maintenance, support, and/or hosting fees.

What vendors work with Drupal Forge?

DevPanel is actively contributing to Drupal Forge. We are in talks with other vendors about getting involved and would welcome assistance reaching out to more. Interested vendors should open an issue on our project page and select Vendors as the component.

How is Drupal Forge funded?

Drupal Forge is supported by various individuals and companies. 

If you would like to support Drupal Forge, then please contact us.

Scroll