Permissions Turbo: A High-Performance Alternative to Drupal's Permission Administration

We are excited to announce the release of Permissions Turbo, a new Drupal module that reimagines the permissions administration interface with modern performance techniques.

If you've ever worked on a Drupal site with many modules installed, you know the frustration: the default permissions page (/admin/people/permissions) becomes painfully slow, often taking 10+ seconds to load and consuming hundreds of megabytes of memory. This longstanding issue has been a recurring annoyance for site builders and administrators alike.

Permissions Turbo addresses this problem at its core, delivering a 90%+ improvement in load times while adding useful features that make routine permission management faster and more intuitive.

Key Features

• Lazy-loaded accordion interface: Permissions are organized by module in collapsible sections. Checkbox data loads on-demand only when you expand a section, keeping the initial page load fast regardless of how many modules you have installed.

• Instant search: Filter permissions in real-time as you type. Matching sections auto-expand to show results. No waiting for server roundtrips.

• Delta-based saving: Only changed permissions are sent to the server, reducing save request sizes from megabytes to kilobytes.

• Change tracking: Modified checkboxes are highlighted, a status bar shows your pending changes, and the browser warns you before navigating away with unsaved work.

• Keyboard shortcuts: Save with Ctrl+S (Cmd+S on Mac).

Performance Improvements

On a site with 100+ modules, typical improvements include:

• Initial load time: 5-15 seconds → under 500ms
- DOM nodes: 50,000+ → under 5,000
- Save request size: 2-5MB → under 10KB

Getting Started

1. Install the module via Composer: composer require drupal/permission_turbo
2. Enable the module
3. Visit /admin/people/permissions-turbo or find it at Administration → People → Permissions (Turbo)

Requirements

• Drupal 10.x or 11.x
- PHP 8.1+

This module was built during some quiet evenings over the holidays, scratching an itch that has been bothering us for years. Sometimes the best contributions come from finally sitting down and fixing the things that frustrate you most.

For more information and to download the module, visit the Permissions Turbo project page.