Drupal 7 end of life - migration options
After many extensions, Drupal 7 security support will officially end on 5 January 2025. This is the final extension of Drupal 7 end of life – Drupal 7 will not receive security support after this date.
This leaves older sites running on Drupal 7 (or earlier versions) without community support. No security upgrades or bug fixes make for a vulnerable site. What are site owners to do going forward to make sure their site is not vulernable? We'll explore the options.
Migrate to the latest version of Drupal
The Drupal core contibution team has put together a guide for site owners for migration from Drupal 7. This is a good starting place to evaluate the journey forward.
The reccommended path for moving to a newer version of Drupal is actually to rebuild your site on the latest version of Drupal, and then migrate the content to the new site once all the functionality and architecture has been replicated.
For simpler sites, you may be able to perform an upgrade of your site via the Migrate Upgrade module. You would set up a connection to your Drupal 7 database, and run the tool to create migration scripts for supposrted modules (mostly Drupal core). Note that this is intended to work not as a tradtional upgrade in place. Ther code base of Drupal changed substantially staring at version 8, and there is not a direct upgrade path for many modules.
The Migrate suite of modules will be your best friend, and many contrib modules provide upgrade paths via migration using the Migrate APIs.
Retrofit for Drupal
I just recently discovered a new project called Retrofit for Drupal that implements a compatibility layer for several Drupal 7 APIs in Drupal 10. This allows you to run legacy code in a modern Drupal install. This could be promising for some users, to enable you to run older code on a new Drupal codebase (at least until you can properly update your code).
Paid long-term suport for Drupal 7
There will probably be some vendors offering long term paid support for organizations with mission-critical sites still on Drupal 7. This can be a good stop-gap solution for some companies, until they can plan for a migration to the latest version of Drupal, or to implement another solution.
The Drupal.org migration guide has a link to a vendor (HeroDevs) offering a "Never-Ending Support" service for Drupal 7. I am not familiar with them, so I cannot comment on their offering, but it may be worth investiagting for companies looking for long term support.
Backdrop CMS
Backdrop CMS provides a direct upgrade path from Drupal 7 - it acts as though it were the next version of Drupal for the purposes of upgrading.
Backdrop CMS was started as a response to the many fundamental changes in the architecture of Drupal starting with Drupal 8. A few prominent Drupal developers forked the Drupal 7 codebase into a new project aimed at providing a familiar developer experience and compatibilty (mostly) with Drupal 7. They have added many Drupal features and contributed modules into the core, including:
- Full Configuration Management (easy deploying between environments)
- Built-in Views module (dynamic list generator), and Layout module (similar to Panels in Drupal 7)
- More than 70 Drupal modules have been merged into Backdrop core
- 96 of the top 100 Drupal 7 modules are ready for Backdrop CMS.
This makes Backdrop CMS a good choice for site owners who want the familiarity and stability of Drupal 7, but knowing that it will be receiving new features. There is a bit of a risk when moving to a relatively new platform, but judging by the long list of companies listed on their Service Providers page, it won't be hard to find support for Backdrop.
Backdrop may be a good option for smaller companies and individuals, that is also forward-looking.
Conclusion
All three of these options offer a good way to move your website to a supported platform. Drupal 8 should probably be the choice for most sites, as it provides the most future-proof soltuion. If you want the most painless transition, and want your site to be up and running as quickly as possible, you should go with Drupal 7. If your needs lie somewhere in-between, needing future development, while keeping a familiar environment, then you may want to give Backdrop a try.
Still not sure where to go with your Drupal transition? Give me a shout, and I can help you figure out a way forward.