On the flip side, any small ecommerce sites might consider ‘downsizing’ to a platform such as Woocomerce on WordPress.įor any brochure sites, we’d highly recommend looking at WordPress or our own Clear CMS, which is highly flexible and intuitive. For larger ecommerce sites, the benefits of Magento might want to be considered, as the migration to a Magento 2 site might actually be easier, and of more use, than that of a Drupal 9 update. It might be rich of us to say, being Magento specialists, but any remaining Drupal 7 sites should really consider if they have the capability, and/or have the need to upgrade to Drupal 9 within the next year. There’s just over a year to plan and implement two updates (one very lengthy and technically difficult) to remain supported and run on the latest version. However, for any Drupal 7 sites, the timeframe for update has to be a major consideration. Hopefully, this is paid off in the minimal planning and resources that will be required to get to Drupal 9. Are there any alternatives?įor any Drupal 8 sites, the legwork of the 7 to 8 update is already done. What does this mean for Drupal 8 sites?ĭrupal have assured their users that the migration from 8 to 9 will be 'an easy transition.' They’ve said the first release of Drupal 9 will be identical to the last release of Drupal 8, except with deprecated code removed and dependencies updated to newer versions. They’ve stated it requires substantial planning of technological restructuring and coding. Continuing to use Drupal 7 may be flagged as insecure by 3rd party scans, not only compromising the functionality and security of the site itself, but also the trust of users and consumers.ĭrupal are recommending any of the remaining 700,000 Drupal 7 sites to migrate to 8 before 9, as the transition from 7 to 8 is so significant. No matter what the platform, it’s always best practice to not use unsupported software, especially on sites that deal with transactions. What does this mean for Drupal 7 sites?ĭrupal 7 sites will no-longer have updates, security fixes, or enhancements provided by the community. This will bring with it the ‘end of life’ for Drupal 7 and Drupal 8 in November 2022. As such, we probably should mention that Drupal will be releasing its newest version, Drupal 9, next month.

We know we’re guilty of always banging on about Magento (especially with Magento 1 end of life being at the end of June 2020!). Change the fricken’ record.” – I hope you picked up on the Hot Fuzz reference. *Update since article was written: Given the impact of COVID-19 on budgets and businesses, Drupal will be extending the end of life until November 28, 2022.

Drupal versions end of life