Varbase

Varbase is the starter-kit distribution from Vardot — Drupal with the first weeks of site-building already done: a curated, best-practice assembly of editorial tooling, media management, SEO, security hardening and performance defaults, with serious multilingual foundations. If you'd otherwise start every project by installing the same thirty modules, Varbase is that list, maintained for you.

What ships on BOA

The VBX platform is rebuilt from the upstream Composer template as BOA releases ship — the stable Varbase 10 line on the current Drupal 11 core. (Upstream also publishes an 11.0 line; it's still in beta with a different codebase layout, so BOA deliberately builds the stable line.) One structural quirk worth knowing: like Thunder, Varbase uses docroot/ as its web directory rather than the more common web/ — BOA handles that for you, but it matters if you browse the codebase over SFTP.

Installing a site on it

Create a site on the Varbase platform with the varbase profile — that's what assembles the distribution's editorial environment rather than a bare Drupal. Everything after the install is standard Drupal administration.

Good to know

• Varbase tracks Drupal core closely upstream, and the BOA platform tracks Varbase — a newer BOA build usually carries the newer Varbase. Moving an existing site up happens with the Migrate Site task, on your schedule.
• The SEO, security and performance choices Varbase preassembles work out of the box here — BOA's standard stack (Valkey object cache, page caching, HTTPS) complements them without any setup on your side — see Caching.

Where to go next

• Choosing and managing platforms — getting VBX into your platform list.
• Cloning and migrating — the safe way to move a site between platforms.