Drupal 11.3: how to make your website load up to 50% faster

On December 17th, the Drupal team released version 11.3 with a bold headline: the biggest performance boost in a decade. After reviewing the data and independent tests, I think they're not exaggerating.

What they improved

The main change is in how Drupal handles database queries. Until now, if a page needed to load 10 entities, it requested them one by one. Now it groups them into a single request. It might seem like a minor change, but on a complex page with many blocks and components, the difference is huge.

Official tests using the Umami profile show these results comparing Drupal 11.2 with 11.3:

First visit (cold cache):

• SQL queries: from 381 to 263, 31% fewer
• Cache operations: from 471 to 316, 33% fewer

Subsequent visits (partial cache):

• SQL queries: from 171 to 91, 47% fewer

MD Systems, a Swiss agency specializing in Drupal, ran their own tests on sites using Paragraphs and measured reductions of up to 62% in queries. If you work with pages that have many nested Paragraphs, you know what that means.

How they did it

Three main changes:

Bulk entity loading. Instead of individual queries, Drupal now groups database requests. This is the change with the most direct impact.

PHP Fibers. This PHP 8.1 feature allows Drupal to take advantage of wait times. While waiting for data from one query, it prepares other parts of the page.

Cache optimization. They've revised what gets stored, when, and how it's retrieved. They've also reduced the size of the service container, which improves response times on cached pages.

Who will notice it most

Any Drupal site should see improvements, but the impact will be more noticeable on:

High-concurrency sites. Fewer queries per page means the server can handle more simultaneous users with the same resources.

Complex pages with Paragraphs or Layout Builder. Bulk entity loading makes a significant difference when there are many nested components.

Multilingual websites. They've specifically optimized queries related to translations.

Worth upgrading

What I find most interesting about this release is that the improvements are automatic. You don't need to change code or review configurations: you upgrade to Drupal 11.3 and your site starts performing better. That doesn't happen often.

References: Official announcement on Drupal.org | Technical analysis by MD Systems