What you can build on Acquia

Acquia gives you a Drupal backend two ways: Source CMS, a SaaS site Acquia runs for you, or Cloud Platform, hosting for a Drupal application you run yourself. Either backend renders its own pages with no separate frontend (the default mode, in-platform rendering), or serves content over an API to a frontend you build (headless). Those two choices, who runs the backend and who renders the pages, are independent, so there are four combinations.

Before you start

You need an Acquia account, plus the backend for your path: a Cloud Platform application you can access, or a Source CMS site you can administer. The direct JSON:API path and every write also need an API client’s credentials: DRUPAL_SITE_URL, DRUPAL_CLIENT_ID, DRUPAL_CLIENT_SECRET; the Canvas Headless quickstart needs only the site. If you don’t have them yet:

• No account? Start a Cloud Platform free trial: self-serve, no credit card, and it gives you a Drupal 11 application with its codebase already provisioned in the repository, Dev, Stage, and Prod environments, and a Cloud IDE with acli installed, so the Cloud Platform paths open the same day. For a Source CMS site, request a Source demo or ask your organization’s subscription admin to invite you.
• A Cloud Platform application: if your organization already has a subscription, ask its subscription admin for access to the application you need; the trial above is the self-serve route when there is no subscription yet.
• A site: your subscription’s first Source CMS site is created for you automatically; create more from the Sites Dashboard (creating a new site, on docs.acquia.com).
• API client credentials (for the direct JSON:API path and writes): the auth quickstart creates them in about ten minutes.

What you can build

• A headless frontend on Source CMS. Your own Next.js, Astro, or Nuxt app renders the site, fetching content over JSON:API, and with Canvas Headless editors keep composing pages from your app’s components in the visual editor: no backend to install or operate. Start with the Canvas Headless quickstart; your first content fetch is the advanced path, when you need the content as data.
• A Canvas site on Source CMS. No separate frontend: editors compose pages visually in Drupal Canvas from components you write as React/JSX. Start with your first Canvas component.
• A Drupal codebase on Cloud Platform. Full control of a Drupal application, rendering in-platform or headless, deployed to Cloud Platform through git. Start with shipping a change to a dev environment.
• An AI agent against your content. Connect an agent to a Source CMS site over MCP and make it a real tool call. Start with connecting an AI agent.

Choose your path walks through two questions and points you at all four combinations.