Migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8/9

Drupal 7 was released in 2011, and since then it has been updated with security patches. But now the time has come to move on from this version of Drupal.  Drupal 7 & 8 both reached end-of-life in Nov, 2021.  

 

Why we recommend migrating straight to Drupal 9

If you are currently on Drupal 7 then migrating to Drupal 9 will most likely make the most sense.  Drupal 9 is stable and end-of-life support for Drupal 8 ended November 2021.  

 

Drupal 7 & 8 reaching end-of-life on November 2, 2021

According to Drupal:

Drupal 8 will reach its end-of-life on November 2, 2021, before the release of Drupal 9.3.0, due to Symfony 3's end-of-life. If you are using Drupal 8, you must upgrade to Drupal 9.2 before November to keep your site secure. (Drupal 9.1 security coverage ends shortly after the Drupal 8 end-of-life, so updating to 9.2 directly is best.)

 

What about migrating from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9?

Migrating from Drupal 8 to 9 is relatively easy.  Both platforms are built on Symfony and migrating the content should be painless.  We are able to assist with that as well.

 

How difficult is it to migrate from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9?

The process is more complex than going from Drupal 8 to 9.  We are seeing most migration projects taking 2 - 4 months depending on the site size and complexity.  Its also a great time to do a redesign if that is on the table for your company as well.  The process of migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 is not as simple as most migration projects because starting with Drupal 8 the coding architecture changed.  

 

Does this mean that our Drupal 7 or Drupal 8 site is in danger of being unsecured?

No.  Drupal 7 & 8 will still receive important security updates.  We do recommend working with an agency with Drupal website support to insure all updates are made in a timely manner with issue checks after the updates are made.

 

What's the best way to migrate from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9?

The process of upgrading from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 can be thought of as a re-platforming.  It is not as severe as moving to a complete different platform since the backend for editing content will feel similar.

With that said though there are major differences under the hood.  Managing structured data is similar as it is in Drupal 7. Significant work was put into the Migration APIs over the course of the Drupal 8 life cycle, which means that upgrading to Drupal 9 is easier than upgrading to 8.

 

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