So long Drupal 7
After more than a decade after its first release, Drupal 7, the digital backbone for many of the world’s leading businesses and non-profit organisations is finally coming to an end (probably!).
With Drupal 7’s end of life (EOL) having been generously extended back in January 2022 until November the 1st 2023, it goes without saying that the sense of urgency to migrate away, may have been dampened for some organisations, overwhelmed by the task at hand and relieved to have been granted a stay of execution.
It’s now been an entire year since Drupal announced its end of life extension for D7, usage statistics from Drupal core suggest that in January 2023, over 425,000 websites remain on Drupal 7, despite its EOl later this year.
Rather surprisingly, these figures were at 525,000 back in January 2022, indicating that within 1 year, D7’s usage has only reduced by 100,000, leaving very little time for the remaining 400,000+ to upgrade to Drupal 10.
What does Drupal 7’s end of life mean?
Put simply, as of November the 1st 2023, the Drupal Association and Drupal Security Team will stop supporting Drupal 7 with immediate effect, this includes ongoing support for security fixes for both core and contributed modules, along with any CMS enhancements.
What If I decided to stay on Drupal 7?
We understand that for many businesses and organisations, the sheer thought of having to migrate your website, and in many cases digital infrastructure, can seem daunting, leading many to sit on the problem and put it off.
It’s important to add, if you are currently running on Drupal 7 and plan to continue past its extended EOL date, your website will continue to function as normal with little or no interruptions.
However, as highlighted above, it will no longer receive official updates or support by the Drupal Association and Security Team. This means that any security vulnerabilities or bugs discovered after that point will no longer be fixed, which is likely to cause multiple security risks to your organisation and its customers.
Additionally, choosing to remain on an unsupported CMS will prevent you from exploring and utilising Drupal’s full capabilities and new features which are being rolled out currently for its latest version, Drupal 10.
So you’re ready to migrate, what’s next?
If leaving your website unsupported, and open to possible data breaches doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, we hear you loud and clear.
In fact, it's never been more important to ensure online ethical practices from a digital perspective are adhered to, for the safety and security of your customer data and intellectual property.
So, you’re ready to start planning your migration, but are not sure where to look next, don’t worry we’ve got you covered.
Having recently launched just over 1 month ago, on December the 14th 2022, Drupal 10 is the very latest iteration of Drupal’s incredibly popular open source CMS (well technically framework, but we can split that hair in a future article!), boasting an array of new features and updated functionality aimed at improving and strengthening the platform and its applications.
What’s included in Drupal 10?
In reality, there are a whole host of benefits to Drupal’s very latest edition, however, there are a handful that particularly jump out to us here at Versantus, such as the following:
- Drupal 10 is phasing out elements of jQuery, for more modern JavaScript components, to help improve performance and scalability, strengthening the ability to effortlessly handle greater traffic and data loads.
- Symfony 6 components are now fully integrated under the hood, helping to significantly improve the underlying architecture of the platform, enabling drupal developers to freely utilise a variety of PHP libraries.
- Olivero has replaced Bartik, which comes as default with Drupal 10, and is fully accessible straight out-of-the-box. This improved accessibility and updated multilingual support, now makes it even more functional for users able bodied, or disabled to access and manage content freely no matter their native language.
- The introduction of CKEditor 5, Drupal’s enhanced content authoring functionality, introduces an updated and intuitive page builder, and media management experience from its predecessor CKEditor 4, opening up the playing field for both technically, and less technically minded users.
- Improved security and ongoing support, is one of the most essential features to highlight here, Drupal’s latest addition to their CMS has made many significant improvements, including updated support for 2-factor authentication and improved secrets management to name just a few.
Getting to know Drupal 10 up close
If you’re interested in delving a little deeper into the state of Drupal 10, we highly recommend signing up to Acquia’s Drupal 10 webinar, which outlines the benefits of Drupal 10 in-depth. Most definitely not one to be missed, especially with influential speakers such as Drupal and Acquia’s very own Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Dries Buyaert.
Should you migrate to Drupal 9, or Drupal 10?
With Drupal 9 having also announced its EOL this November 2023, it goes without question that we would recommend skipping Drupal 9 and going straight to Drupal 10. Unlike the move from Drupal 7 or 8 to Drupal 9, the step from Drupal 9 to Drupal 10 is essentially an upgrade rather than a rewrite and migration.
There may be some initial growing pains with Drupal 10, but with many of the community contributed modules already having been updated to be Drupal 10 compliant, and the remaining ones not far behind, this is a pay-off we believe is worth-while considering the risks associated with continuing to use an unsupported CMS variant such as D7, D8 and soon to be D9.
Am I running out of time to migrate across?
If you’re reading this, and have yet to get the ball rolling, do not worry, you’ve still got plenty of time. In fact, thanks to our Acquia partnership, we now have the ability to further extend commercial support for Drupal 7 users up until 2025, helping to provide organisations with more time to strategise their migration.
No matter the decision you make, it is imperative that you consider the time it may take to plan out your migration, as well as execute it, not forgetting those unforeseen bugs and issues that are almost a given when migrating over.
What to do next?
As briefly mentioned above, if you plan on migrating to Drupal 10, you’re going to want to make sure your development team has enough time to progress the upgrade, which is why we recommend ensuring you always plan ahead.
However, we also understand that it may be a difficult task, especially if you’re low on resources and support. Worry not though, as we at Versantus are here to help alleviate the stress and anxiety you’re likely feeling. Having worked with Drupal since 2009, we’re pretty confident in saying we know a thing or two about this open-source framework, so why not drop us a message or give us a call to see how we can help.