Drupal 8 was one of the most anticipated CMS releases of 2015. From the moment Dries announced his intentions to develop D8, we have long waited for the moment when we'd be able to check it out. Drupal is all about number 8, so here are eight really cool Drupal modules that will make your life easier. We've tested them, partly in Drupal 7 and then in Drupal 8, partly only in D8. As we test more modules and functionalities, we will keep you informed on the progress we've made.

The Admin Toolbar A much easier to use administration menu. This may not seem like much, but this drop-down Admin Menu makes an admin's life easier. It's easy to install and does not consume lots of resources. Trust us, it will save a lot of time.

Spider Slap Everyone hates digital spiders. Why? Because these evils of the WWW can load your server to uncover information. The Spider Slap module is like a superhero for your website. It solves this spider problem by blocking the IP whenever a spiderling is not behaving or manages to bypass the robots.txt file.

Database Email Encryption Another Drupal module that takes care of both users' and developers' everyday email problems. Studies have shown that users are rather reticent when it comes to sharing personal data such as email addresses or social media accounts. They fear spam emails or further problems such as cyber-attacks. This problem is now gone due to this new Drupal 8 Database Email Encryption module. As the name suggests, this module encrypts the addresses in the site's databases and makes them impossible to read in the case of malware.

D8 Login History Drupal does not create a login archive by default, but with this Login History module, it will. After installing the Login History module, you will have an archive with a complete history of all individual logins.

Scheduled Maintenance This is a module we got to use several times in Drupal 7, and it has made its comeback with Drupal 8. We haven't seen much difference from the D7 variant, but it's always good to have it. For those who have never used it, with this Scheduled Maintenance module, you can inform your users about scheduled maintenance in a previously set time range.

Automatic Sitemap Generation Module Good news for all the D8 SEO enthusiasts. Building a sitemap has never been so easy. Since D6, this module has been constantly changed and developed, and now it's part of D8. Did you know that Drupal also generates RSS feeds? Yes, folks!

Taxonomy Unique Goodbye, duplicates! Another useful SEO module, the Taxonomy Unique module prohibits saving a taxonomy term when a term with the same name exists in the same vocabulary. We've used a similar module (dupecheck) for previous Drupal 7 projects. Now we have tested it for D8, and it seems to be working just fine.

W3C Validator Maybe I'm an SEO fan, but this is by far my favorite module. This W3C validator checks all pages and nodes, generates a report, and tells the user if the HTML formatting is correct and will get the most out of your content. NB: You may want to use this module for large websites, but it may still work for smaller websites (to be tested).

Hope you've found these modules helpful. Check them out, share your favorite one, or the ones you've had problems with - maybe we can help. 

One thing is sure: stay tuned for even more D8 knowledge!