Drupal's security team announced that the Drupal 7 EOL date has now been extended until November 2023. 'But how will that affect me', we hear you ask?Drupal 7 was released more than a decade ago now, and many sites rely on it today. That’s why the end-of-life date has been extended for another year.
This extension will have a huge impact on those struggling to make the move before November 2022, so their site can still be supported. And we’re here to help those still on Drupal 7 to understand what it means to stay on the current version any longer.
How does this affect me?
Still on Drupal 7? Now the EOL date has been extended, feel like you don’t need to worry about it for another year?
You aren’t the only one to think that might be the case. It's easy to see an extended EOL date and think you’ll be fine.
But we urge you to stay on Drupal 7 for longer with caution.
You’ll hear us banging the Drupal upgrade drum until the cows come home. Yes - we want to be able to upgrade your sites - but there will be a bigger cost to you if you slow down progress now.
Stopping – or even slowing down – work, halfway through an upgrade could mean an extra cost of time and money in the long run. When the work needs to get picked up again, as it inevitably will, it could take longer to get back into the swing of things.
By that time, there may be further versions of Drupal 9 that your existing Drupal 7 site needs to catch up with.
Why do I need to keep my site up to date?
Keeping your site and software up to date in general is essential to maintaining your online presence. Not only does this mean you can reap all the benefits of each small upgrade, such as functionality and user friendliness, it also means you are keeping the security of your site in top condition.
Any deprecated code in your Drupal 7 site also will not work in Drupal 9. This is when “out-of-date” code has been replaced with new code. This therefore needs to be updated too before making the move.
Drupal sites not only rely on their own version upgrades, but also relies on its programming language, PHP, to be kept up to date too. The delaying of Drupal 7 end-of-life will unfortunately not stop the end-of-life of PHP 7, which is happening in November 2022.
Not all Drupal 7 is compatible with PHP 8, the newest version. This is all a balancing act! If you decide to fully upgrade from an earlier version of PHP to PHP 8 without considering the version of Drupal you’re on, that could also break your site.
But not to fear – this is the key reason both should be kept up to date in regular small upgrades to avoid these kinds of pitfalls. With a development team on your side, these problems should all be kept at bay. That’s us!
What are the differences between Drupal 7 and 9?
You’ll notice a whole heap of extra functionality and benefits, for both your internal team and your external users. Here are some of our favourites:
- Improved responsive design functionality
- Better multilingual capabilities
- Easier content editing and even a spell checker tool!
- Improved accessibility
Want to find out more about Drupal 9? We’ve put together some FAQs for you to peruse at your leisure.