Modules that influence the generation of a breadcrumb trail

Comparison of modules that customize the breadcrumb and make nodes and other content appear to be under a chosen menu item:

Hansel (7.x)
Hansel provides custom breadcrumbs which are build by user defined rules. These rules are independent from the menu system. Rules can have logic switches and can add links to the breadcrumbs.
Node Breadcrumb (7.x)
Allows you to create rules which indicate menu location of nodes (and the breadcrumb), either with the admin UI, or with PHP code.
Taxonomy Breadcrumb (7.x, 8.x)
Automatically add term links (taxonomy/term/tid) to breadcrumb of nodes
Custom Breadcrumbs (7.x, 8.x, 9.x)
Customization only for entire content types, manual enter of breadcrumb links
Menu Breadcrumb (7.x, 8.x, 9.x)
Use your site's menu(s) to generate breadcrumbs.
Menu Trails (not maintained)
Customization by content types and taxonomy terms. This module's main function is to implement primary/secondary links which keep the current menu trail "active" or highlighted.
Crumbs (7.x)
Builds a breadcrumb trail by finding the parent of the current page, then the parent of the parent, etc, until it arrives at the home page. Each step is based on a series of user-prioritized plugins representing menu hierarchy, taxonomy, system path, alias, pathauto rules, nodereference fields, custom token paths per entity bundle, and additional rules that can be defined in custom modules.
Menu position (7.x, 8.x)
Allows for the creation of rules that will dynamically add the current page into the menu system (and thus breadcrumbs) at the requested spots. Currently, the Menu position module provides "content type", "pages", "taxonomy", "vocabulary" and "language" plug-ins that allows conditions to be added to rules.
Breadcrumbs by path (7.x)
Breadcrumbs by path uses the current URL (path alias) and the current page's title to automatically extract the breadcrumb's segments and its respective links
Easy Breadcrumb (7.x, 8.x)
Easy Breadcrumb uses the current URL (path alias) and the current page's title to automatically extract the breadcrumb's segments and its respective links
Path Breadcrumbs (7.x)
Path Breadcrumbs module helps you to create breadcrumbs for any page
with any selection rules and load any entity from the URL.

Modules that add functionality to an existing breadcrumb

Crumbdown
Adds dropdown submenus to some breadcrumb items. Depends on Crumbs. Currently not actively developed. D6 only.

 

 

Check the comparison tables below (moved, so sidebar doesn't clobber).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comparison table for Drupal 7.x and above.

 

Feature Custom Breadcrumbs Menu Breadcrumb Path Breadcrumbs Popup Clickpath Hansel Crumbs Breadcrumb Menu position
Drupal-related
Drupal 8.x - - - - - - - Planned
Drupal 7.x  
Drupal 6.x - "unstable"  
Drupal 5.x -  
Usage >49k >40k >13k >7k <300 >1k >15k <600 >23k
*Last update

September 9,

2014

October 8,

2013
June 24,

2014
July 6, 2014 April 4, 2010 October 30, 2014 October 2,

2014
February 24, 2011 February 22,

2012
Documentation / README Readme   FAQ,

Video
Page     Doc    
Demo / screenshot - settings screen Video,

screenshots
- - screenshots -   screenshot
Functionality
API, Hooks, classes available     API,

CTools Plugins
    Yes Plugins  
User defined rules ? ? ?   ?
 Admin UI            
Token support      
Additional database tables                
Breadcrumbs based on ...
Menu hierarchy ?   - ? - ?   ? ?
Taxonomy ? - ? - ?   ? ?
Path alias ? ? - ? ? ?   ? ?
Node reference / entity reference ? ? ? ? ?   ? ?
Organic groups ? ? ? ? ?   ? ?
Click history ? ? ? ?   ? ? ?
Admin defined rules ? ?   ? ?     ?  
Code-defined rules ? ?   ? ? ?   ? ?
Prioritization of rules ? ?   ? ? ? fine-grained hierarchical prioritization with wildcards via admin weights UI

? ?
Notes     Page Manager friendly UI. Ctools based. Cacheable.        

See: #481564

Makes you breadcrumbs and menus consistent.

Due to the usage of the menu system it’s less flexible than other modules.

*Note: The most recent update to any of these modules' "Last update" dates was December 16, 2014.

 

Comparison table for Drupal 6.x and below.

Feature Menu Trails Taxonomy Breadcrumb Node Hierarchy Node breadcrumb TrailScout
Drupal-related
Drupal 8.x - - - -
Drupal 7.x
Drupal 6.x
Drupal 5.x
Usage >8k >7k >4k <1k <100
*Last update March 16, 2010 April 16, 2010 June 13, 2013 December 10, 2014 September 26, 2014
Documentation / README Readme   Page   Desc
Demo / screenshot screenshots - - screenshots demo
Functionality
API, Hooks, classes available          
User defined rules ? ? ? ?
 Admin UI        
Token support No    
Additional database tables          
Breadcrumbs based on ...
Menu hierarchy - - - ? ?
Taxonomy -   ? ? ?
Path alias ? ? ? ? ?
Node reference / entity reference ? ? ? ? ?
Organic groups ? ? ? ? ?
Click history ? ? ? ? ?
Admin defined rules ? ? ? ? ?
Code-defined rules ? ? ? ? ?
Prioritization of rules ? ? ? ? ?
Notes          

*Note: The most recent update to any of these modules' "Last update" dates was December 16, 2014.

Suggested web-browser add-ons to easier edit above tables: Xinha, Write Area.

See also: Comparison of Breadcrumb Modules in the Similar Module Review Drupal group.

Comments

panos’s picture

An alternative solution is the Taxonomy Module. This module creates a menu item for each taxonomy term in the system. This automatically gives you both downward navigation through menu items and upward navigation through breadcrumbs.

momper’s picture

maybe some of the modules should join or the developers should cooperate - for beginners it's confusing ...

kenorb’s picture

See: http://groups.drupal.org/node/79839 (13 modules)
This list should be updated.
Probably converted to some table with functionality comparison.

kenorb’s picture

Sorry, but I can't edit this page anymore.
Because of images, which are not allowed to edit.
See: #916818: Re-enable the images on http://drupal.org/node/533448
If somebody interested with recent version of this table, send me an e-mail.

donquixote’s picture

yeah, this is unfortunate..

kenorb’s picture

Ok, now is fine. I can edit. Thanks.

donquixote’s picture

The table overlaps with the right sidebar.
Would it make sense to split the table? If you put Module names on the left, and categories on top, then you could easily break it up.

EDIT:
Of course it would be psychologically wrong to have one module on top of the others.

donquixote’s picture

I added a bunch of new table rows, which all happen to make my own module (Crumbs) look good. Still it does make sense to have these, I believe.
I put a lot of question marks for the other modules, because honestly I have no idea. Feel free to replace these with something meaningful.

trond7’s picture

This seems to be a useful breadcrumps module that should be added
http://drupal.org/project/panels_breadcrumbs

sebto’s picture

Path breadcrumb is more useful to customize breadcrumb. It's a powerful module which I used in many Drupal projects. There is a blog post for Persians to learn more.

kenorb’s picture

Probably we need to convert this big table into two. First one with the one which supports 7.x (8), the other one with no support for 7.x (6)

Did it.

sam1000’s picture

I think that Path breadcrumb is better than customize breadcrumb.

ruha’s picture

I updated the dates on the modules based on the last release, except for "Breadcrumb". The 2003 date was way off so I took the date of the last commit.
I took the current number of "Reported installs".