Drupal 9 end of life: how does it impact your business?

Drupal 9 was released in 2020 and reaches its end of life (EOL) in November 2023. This implies that websites using Drupal 9 or an earlier version will not receive any further official support or updates beyond that time. This can lead to potential issues with security and performance of your website. Your capability to enhance your digital experiences can also be limited as new features and functionalities will not be compatible with older versions of Drupal. If your website is operating on Drupal 9 or an earlier version, it's important to start planning its upgrade to Drupal 10 as soon as possible.

The timing of Drupal 9’s end of life in November 2023 comes down to the fact that CKEditor 4 and Symfony 4 will both come to an end at the same time. The complexity of the upgrade will vary from project to project. Therefore, it is essential to allocate sufficient time and resources to ensure a smooth transition to Drupal 10 before November 2023.

As already mentioned, in November 2023 websites operating on Drupal 9 or an older version will stop receiving official support and updates from the large Drupal community. This exposes your digital experiences to unpredictable issues related to security and overall performance, making your websites more vulnerable and unstable. Flexibility, which is one of the main benefits of Drupal, becomes limited, while future development and maintenance becomes more costly. Therefore, updating to Drupal 10 is necessary for all businesses aiming for optimal performance and future growth.

By upgrading your website, you can get the most out of Drupal and allow us to provide you with complete support, helping you meet all of your business requirements. Keeping your website up-to-date with the latest version of Drupal will simplify its future development and maintenance, saving you both time and money.

If your system is already operating on a recent version of Drupal (in this case Drupal 9), good news, the process of upgrading to Drupal 10 is likely to be easier. Nevertheless, the complexity of the upgrade may vary for different projects. It depends on adjustments that need to be made to the core codebase, contributed modules, themes and custom code used in your current system to make them compatible with Drupal 10, as well as on the amount of deprecated features and functionalities that need to be removed.

We have already started the transition of some projects to Drupal 10 for our clients. To prepare for the upgrade process, it is important to start planning time and resources as soon as possible regardless of your current Drupal version (Drupal 9 or earlier). Our team can assist you in estimating the costs and timeline of the upgrade for your project and ensure the whole process is properly planned and there is enough time and resources to complete the upgrade within an established deadline.

Our comprehensive upgrade process comprises seven steps: from planning and preparation to continuous maintenance and support.  Our process is highly secure and reliable, with a strong focus on ensuring the safety of your data by taking all necessary backups of your current database before starting the upgrade to Drupal 10.

Additionally, we conduct test upgrades on test and staging environments before proceeding with the upgrade on production, thereby ensuring that all bugs and errors are promptly detected and resolved in earlier stages. Let’s start planning a successful transition to Drupal 10 together!

Upgrading to Drupal 10 is not a problem if it's properly planned. It ensures your website stays up to date with the latest technologies and Drupal best practices, provides a full range of benefits and gives endless possibilities to scale and enhance your digital experiences according to your business needs.