Which Drupal Version Should I Be Using?
Drupal is a feature-rich content management system that can definitely benefit any business.
With Drupal 9 release just around the corner, the major question that worries the website owners is which version of Drupal to use?
Drupal support team at Drudesk decided to sort things out. Let’s dive into Drupal world and discover which migration solution is the best for you.
Which Drupal Version to Use: Should I Stay Or Should I Go?
D7 and D8 will be end-of-life in November 2021, while Drupal 9 will be released in 2020. Website owners have two options:
- Use Drupal 7 until 2020 and perform a yearlong migration to D9.
- Move to Drupal 8, and then upgrade to Drupal 9.
Migration from Drupal 7 to 9
Drupal 7 is used on nearly 820,000 websites compared to D8’s 245,000. Website owners opt for skipping D8 version and eager to migrate straight to D9 after its release.
Delaying upgrade from 7 to 8 will not solve the problem of complicated migration process. Drupal 9 will require the same scope of work as D8 does, because they are built on the same frameworks.
If you don’t have an urgent reason to move to D8, it makes sense to focus on digital strategy and code quality of your D7 site.
Although the best option for D7 website owners is to migrate to Drupal 8, you can support Drupal 7 website even after official end-of-life. Note, that this option will turn in additional expenses in the future.
Migration from Drupal 8 to 9
If your website is built on the latest Drupal 8 version, migration to D9 will be smooth. D9 should be almost identical to the last D8 release, with deprecated code removed, as stated in the article by Dries Buytaert ‘Making Drupal upgrades easy forever.’
In his blog, the founder of Drupal wrote about plan for Drupal 9:
“Instead of working on Drupal 9 in a separate codebase, we are building Drupal 9 in Drupal 8. This means that we are adding new functionality as backwards-compatible code and experimental features. Once the code becomes stable, we deprecate any old functionality.”
All these mean that migration to Drupal 8 will be effortless:
- no need to rewrite the whole code for D9
- constant D8 updates will keep your platform up-to-date and provide favourable conditions for upgrade
- D8 modules will be compatible with D9
Drupal 8 migration is the solution for those who need most of Drupal’s functionality.
Choose Your Drupal Version
Drudesk migration experts are here to either bridge the gap and take your website to Drupal 8 or support and maintain your Drupal 7 platform. Don’t hesitate to contact us if you need any help regarding Drupal migration.