Drupal 7 is an amazing piece of software. As the content management system that has powered some of the largest websites around the world, Drupal 7 has expanded the expectations for configurability, accessibility, and SEO in open source software. But all great things come to an end, and Drupal 7's end-of-life is scheduled for January 2025.
This deadline from the Drupal Community means that there won't be any more official updates or security patches beyond this date. If you're still using Drupal 7, this means your website could be vulnerable to security threats, compromising the safety of your data and your visitors. Sticking with Drupal 7 could also lead to an increasing difficulty maintaining compatibility with new web technologies and a gradual decline in your website's performance and search engine optimization.
Now's the time to develop a plan that avoids these pitfalls and positions your website for future growth and success. Now's the time to upgrade the latest version of Drupal.
Drupal 10: More than Just an Update
Released at the end of 2022, Drupal 10 is the latest version of Drupal. If you're upgrading from Drupal 7, you'll find Drupal 10 is an enormous improvement on everything you love about Drupal, and it fixes a lot of the things you don't.
Drupal 10 has been rebuilt from the ground up to improve user experience, website performance, and maintainability. Drupal 10 includes new features such as a media library, a mobile-friendly responsive interface, API capabilities the make it easier to integrate with other systems, and greatly improved multilingual support.
Beyond Drupal core, you will find that many of the add-on modules you rely on have used the powerful new development features of Drupal 10 to improve their maintability and performance.
As a result, Drupal 10 websites are far more user-friendly and can be more feature-rich than similar sites on Drupal 7, while also being easier to maintain and extend. Sounds awesome right?
What's Required to Upgrade to Drupal 10?
Okay, so now for the bad news. There's no direct upgrade path from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10. The upgrade process requires a complete rebuild of your website, which will likely also require a migration of your existing content to the new site. Fortunately, Drupal 10 includes an automated migration system that can make the migration of your content relatively easy to configure with limited custom programming.
The Last Website Rebuild You'll Ever Need
But, now for some good news. Once you upgrade to Drupal 10, you'll never have to do a full website rebuild again. Starting with Drupal 8, all major versions of Drupal include a direct upgrade path from one major version to the next, and development tools have been released for these versions that identify all the outdated code and modules, making it easy to plan and execute major version upgrades. In our experience, upgrades from Drupal 8 to 9 and from Drupal 9 to 10 have been vastly simpler than earlier upgrades. The effort required to do major version upgrades varies by the specifics of each site, but it can often be measured in days rather than weeks or months.
We can help you migrate from Drupal 7
No matter where you are in your Drupal 7 migration process, we can help you find the best way forward to ensure the future success of your website.
Who We Are
At Zengenuity, we've been developing Drupal websites since 2006, including websites for small businesses, government agencies, non-profits, and Fortune 500 companies. We've built all types of websites, from traditional marketing websites to custom applications like private social networks, learning management systems, and business workflow applications.
Our developers include Acquia Triple-Certified Drupal experts with decades of experience in Drupal, PHP, and other open source web technologies. We're regular code contributors to Drupal core and contributed modules, and we maintain many modules that can be found on drupal.org.
Some of the website migrations services we can provide include:
Website Audit and Migration Plan
Every new migration project we take on starts with a full website audit. We'll examine your current website, determine how key fuctionality is built, and find existing issues that need to be addressed as part of a rebuild process.
Then, we'll present you with a plan for how to upgrade to the latest version of Drupal, as well as other options if the latest Drupal isn't the best fit for your project requirements or budget.
Drupal 10 Website Development
If you decide that upgrading to the latest version of Drupal is the right approach for your website, we can build your new site and migrate your exisiting website content and URLs to ensure you don't lose valuable search engine optimization.
Consulting, Training, and Support
If you have your own developers, but lack experience on newer versions of Drupal, we can provide consulting, training, and support as your developers execute your Drupal site migration. Let our experts augment your team to ensure your website rebuild goes smoothly and that you follow the best practices for maintainability and performance.
For a more self-service approach, we also offer online training classes through our website at DrupalTutor.com. Here you can learn how to develop build Drupal 10 websites, as well as how to program custom modules and themes.
Ready to get started?
Drupal 7's end-of-life deadline is approaching fast. To find out more about how we can help you ensure your website's future success, please fill out the form below.