Drupal 8 to 9 Migration: Preparing Your Website for Drupal 9
2020 was significant for web development — not just because of Сovid, but also because of the new version Drupal 9.
Since the new version was based on the same core as the previous one, the developers promise that the Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 migration will be smooth and fast.
Drudesk, our web support agency, has put together a guide for you on the migration preparation process from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 to understand all the details and conditions.
Why migrate your site from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9?
With the growth and expansion of your business, your site and its capabilities will also increase. For the site to remain viable with no changes in the site's performance, you need to take care of the migration from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9.
Drupal 9 is 100% prepared for processing large amounts of information, usability, and security.
According to this plan, a new, improved version of Drupal is released every two years. Therefore, the faster you upgrade your site, the less likely you will have problems with your site and subsequent migrations. For example, migrating from Drupal 8 to 9 is much easier than migrating from Drupal 7 to 8.
There are factors that will push you, sooner or later, to migrate to the latest version. One such factor is that Symfony is ending support for Symfony 3 on which Drupal 8 is built.
Top 6 benefits of Drupal 9
Now let's take a look at the reasons for migrating from Drupal 8 to 9.
1. Security
Site security is key. Since obsolete code is the most common problem causing bugs and vulnerabilities, it has been removed in Drupal 9. Now you don't have to worry about it. If your site is on Drupal 8 then it will have security support only until November 2021.
2. New Symfony and TWIG versions
Drupal 9 is powered by the latest Symfony and TWIG versions. This update affects the improvement of site performance and supports easy and quick site development.
3. Increased performance
Drupal 9 has many useful core modules with which you can increase your site's performance and keep it high. There such modules include:
- Big Pipe - caches metadata
- Internal Dynamic Page Cache - caches dynamic content
- Internal Page Cache - caches data of anonymous users
- Blazy - for lazy loading pictures
- CDN - for integration with CDNs
and other.
4. Availability
Drupal 9 complies with the international Internet accessibility policies and WCAG. This means that your site is accessible for all. All internet users, even those who have disabilities, can get a good user experience.
5. Multilingualism
Migration from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 opens up ample opportunities for you to create international sites thanks to the support of more than 100 languages. Drupal 9 has a built-in on-the-fly translation engine.
6. Simple migration
While developing the 9-th version of Drupal, the developers have devoted maximum attention to simplifying migration preparation. Drupal 8 site owners will be able to migrate Drupal 9 sites much more easily than was possible before.
What happens if you don't do Drupal 8 to 9 migration?
You need to upgrade your Drupal website to the 9th version because:
- Older versions are running long term support, which will end in November 2021.
- Your site will not receive official technical support if your site is based on an older version.
- You will stop receiving the bug-fixes, which means increased vulnerability for your site.
- Many modules will not be available to you because their updates will simply not work on the site.
- Due to your site's insecurity and obsolescence, there is a high probability that the site will be hacked and your personal data stolen.
How to prepare your site for the upgrade to Drupal 9?
Recommendations for Drupal 8 site owners
If your site is on Drupal 8, then the best thing you can do is update to the latest version available. Since Drupal 9 loses outdated code, the main requirement is updating all the modules and themes.
Recommendations for Drupal 7 site owners
If your site is on Drupal 7, then you need to first migrate your site to Drupal 8. After that, do all the above steps for Drupal 8.
Drupal 8 to 9 Migration is a complex process. In general, we would advise you not to do it yourself. It is better to hire professional web developers to do everything smoothly, correctly, and without harming your site.