Drupal Canvas
Drupal Canvas is a visual, drag-and-drop page builder. You design pages directly on the page and see exactly what visitors will see while you work. It is built around Drupal's own content model, so your layouts still use structured content, fields, and reusable components, with none of the lock-in that bolt-on builders introduce.
Strengths: true on-page visual editing, free-form layouts, a low learning curve for editors, and reusable components that keep pages on-brand.
Watch out for: it is the newest of the three, so the ecosystem around it is still growing.
Layout Builder
Layout Builder is part of Drupal core. It lets you arrange content into sections and place blocks within them, either as a template for every item of a content type or per individual page. It is configured through the admin interface rather than fully on the page.
Strengths: ships with core, excellent for templated layouts applied consistently across a content type, and well established.
Watch out for: the editing experience is more admin-driven than visual, and complex per-page designs can get fiddly.
Paragraphs
Paragraphs is a long-standing contributed module. Developers define paragraph types, the reusable building blocks, and editors add, remove, and reorder them as items in a field. It is the established way to compose structured, repeatable content in Drupal.
Strengths: mature and battle-tested, great for structured content components, and predictable for editors.
Watch out for: editing happens in stacked forms rather than on the page, and it favours linear, top-to-bottom composition over free-form layout.
How they compare
| Drupal Canvas | Layout Builder | Paragraphs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editing experience | Visual, on-page | Admin UI, section based | Form based, stacked |
| Layout freedom | High, free-form | Medium, section grid | Low to medium, linear |
| Structured content | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Editor learning curve | Low | Medium | Low |
| Comes with core | No | Yes | No |
| Best for | Visual marketing pages | Templated layouts | Structured content blocks |
Which should you choose?
Layout Builder and Paragraphs are mature and still a sensible fit for what they do well: Layout Builder for consistent, templated layouts across a content type, and Paragraphs for structured, repeatable content assembled top to bottom. If you already rely on either, there is no rush to move.
That said, Drupal Canvas is the piece Drupal had long been missing: a genuinely visual, powerful page builder. It lets anyone build polished pages on the page itself, and because it is built on single directory components (SDC) and code components, developers can extend it with real, version-controlled code, even people who are new to Drupal. It is the newest of the three, but it is clearly the direction Drupal is heading. For new projects where visual page building matters, Canvas is the forward-looking choice.
Why Webhaven bets on Drupal Canvas
I believe Drupal Canvas is the future of building with Drupal, so Webhaven is built around it.
Canvas brings visual, on-page editing together with single directory components and code components, which means developers, including those coming to Drupal for the first time, can create and extend components with real code while editors build pages without touching any. Add the built-in AI assistant and it becomes a genuinely modern way to build.
On top of that, Webhaven ships a complete, branded Canvas system out of the box: layouts, sections, components, and atoms ready to drop into place. Instead of an empty canvas, your team starts with professionally designed building blocks, so you get the flexibility of visual page building with the polish of a finished design system from day one.
Can I see Webhaven in action?
Yes, you can see Webhaven in action here.