decoupled.io

Headless Drupal hosting that doesn't require a Drupal team

You came here looking for headless Drupal hosting — or decoupled Drupal hosting, or managed Drupal cloud, or some variation of that. They're all the same problem: you want Drupal's content modeling underneath, modern frontend frameworks on top, and you don't want to operate any of it.

Decoupled.io is built for exactly that.

What you get

Every Decoupled.io space is a real, managed Drupal instance — not a Drupal-shaped abstraction. You keep all the parts of Drupal that matter for serious content work:

  • Entity-field content modeling — content types, paragraphs, taxonomies, references, revisions, content moderation. Twenty years of Drupal architecture, on tap.
  • GraphQL and JSON:API on every tier — both APIs are turned on by default. No contributed-module configuration, no premium-tier gating.
  • A typed TypeScript client — auto-generated from your Drupal schema. Real autocomplete, real type safety, no hand-written queries.
  • Visual page builder (Puck) — drag-and-drop page composition for marketers and content editors, included on every tier.
  • AI content generation — built into the editor, not an upsell add-on.
  • 25+ MCP tools — Claude, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible agent can provision spaces, define content types, import data, and generate integration code directly.

What you don't get is everything you'd otherwise be operating yourself: Drupal updates, security patches, PHP version migrations, server provisioning, TLS certificates, backup pipelines, edge routing.

How the hosting actually works

Every Drupal space you create is its own Fly.io app. That means:

  • Real per-tenant isolation. Your space has its own machine, its own regional volume, its own hostname, and its own TLS certificate. No shared host, no noisy neighbors, no multi-tenant database with a customer-id column.
  • Idle stop on lower tiers, always-on for production. Hobby and Make tier machines spin down on idle and cold-start in 5–8 seconds — fine for a frontend that caches API responses at the edge anyway. Pro tier machines stay always-on.
  • Daily snapshots of your volume, free, with 5-day retention. Optional Backups add-on extends to nightly DB + files archives in Cloudflare R2 with 30-day retention.
  • Anycast edge routing. Requests hit the nearest Fly edge for TLS termination, then route to your tenant's machine.

We've written about why we picked this architecture over Kubernetes in Why we host every Drupal tenant on Fly.io. Short version: a hosted headless CMS needs real isolation between tenants, and we wanted the platform to give us that by default.

What it costs

Pricing is published. Every tier and every limit is on the pricing page. The starting point:

Tier Monthly What it's for
Hobby $0 Real Drupal space, idle-stop, perfect for prototypes and learning
Make $20 Solo developers, internal tools, small marketing sites
Starter $60 Small teams, multiple environments
Pro $300 Production traffic, always-on, full feature set, backups

No per-entry pricing. No per-seat pricing. No traffic-tier surprise bills when your campaign goes viral. The features and the limits at each tier are published before you sign up.

Who this is for

Decoupled.io fits well if you're one of these:

  • A Drupal team modernizing toward headless. You know Drupal. You want a Next.js or Astro frontend. You don't want to also become a hosting team.
  • A team currently on Acquia or Pantheon asking whether the price tag matches the value. We compare directly: vs Acquia, vs Pantheon.
  • A Next.js or Astro team that needs structured content. You want a real CMS backend without the operational overhead of running Drupal yourself.
  • An agency provisioning per-client spaces. Per-tenant isolation, transparent reseller pricing, no minimum commitment per client.
  • A team using AI assistants like Claude or Cursor that want a CMS those agents can manage directly via MCP.

Who this isn't for

Be honest about the constraints:

  • You need to install arbitrary Drupal modules. We provide a curated module set. The curation is intentional — it's how we keep the platform fast, predictable, and operable. If your project requires a specific contributed module not in the set, contact us; we evaluate additions regularly. If the answer is no, traditional Acquia or Pantheon hosting will give you more control.
  • You need WordPress. Decoupled.io is Drupal-only.
  • You need active FedRAMP or ISO 27001 today. Both are roadmap items, not current authorizations. If your buyer requires them now, Acquia is the honest answer.
  • You want a self-hosted CMS. Decoupled.io is a managed platform. If you want full control of the infrastructure, Drupal core is open source — run it yourself.

How to get started

The fastest path:

  1. Create a free Hobby space. Sign up at dashboard.decoupled.io — your Drupal instance spins up in under 60 seconds. No credit card.
  2. Define your content model. Use the getting started guide, the CLI, or talk to Claude through MCP and have it set up your content types directly.
  3. Connect your frontend. Point your Next.js, Astro, or React app at the GraphQL or JSON:API endpoint. The typed client gives you autocomplete and type safety.
  4. Decide if you're staying. Once you've shipped a real page, the question of whether Decoupled.io fits your project will answer itself. Move to Make ($20) or Starter ($60) when you're ready, Pro ($300) when you go to production.

Compare against what you're considering

If you're shopping for headless Drupal hosting, you're probably also looking at one of these. We've written direct comparisons for each:

Or jump straight to pricing if you've already made up your mind.