Higher EducationDrupal → PAYLOAD

Sixty Drupal sites, one university, a single Payload

300k content records across 60 department sites, consolidated into one Payload deployment.

Sixty Drupal sites, one university, a single Payload — case study hero image

PERFORMANCE

+310%

LOC MIGRATED

300k+

DATABASE

PostgreSQL

TIMELINE

22 weeks

The situation

Brookdale's 60 department sites lived in a Drupal instance that exactly one administrator understood. Publishing a new program page required a change request and, frequently, a prayer.

What we did

  • Consolidated 60 department sites into a single multi-tenant Payload deployment
  • Migrated 300,000 content records with faculty review sign-off on every batch
  • Rebuilt permissions as code: 12 roles, fully typed, fully reviewable
  • Replaced the aging Apache Solr search with Meilisearch, wired to Payload's local API

The result

Program page builds that used to take two weeks now take an afternoon. Overall measured performance improved 310%. The one administrator who understood the old system has, reportedly, taken up woodworking.

Running a similar stack?

Tell us what you're on today. We'll tell you honestly whether Payload is the right move — and what the migration would take.

TALK TO US