Everything You Need to Know About Drupal 9

If you are currently using Drupal and are worried about the Drupal 7 and 8 end-of-life, or you want to rebuild now, but have some questions about Drupal 9, fear not. This guide is here to answer all your questions and help you put a plan in place. 

In this guide we will cover off what Drupal 9 will offer website owners, and what the path from a previous version of Drupal to this new version will look like. 

History of Drupal 

Drupal is a free and open-source content management framework. It was originally created by Dries Buytaert, and now has a large community of users and developers involved in its continuous development. Contributors provide active support by creating new functionality, providing security updates, improving its usability, testing updates, creating and improving documentation, and much more. This huge community of contributors helps to improve every aspect of Drupal. 

Drupal has a modular design, made up of various components (or ‘modules’) of code which allow features to be easily added or removed. Drupal has a 'core' set of modules, which offer common site functionality 'out of the box', i.e., as part of its fundamental set up. These are the essential building blocks of any Drupal site. If the required functionality of a site cannot be achieved using Drupal core, it can be extended using contributed modules (which are developed and maintained within the Drupal community) or custom modules (which are built by Drupal experts especially for the site in question). 

Drupal’s innovation model 

Released in 2015, the most recent major version of Drupal is Drupal 8. The Drupal 8 release marked a significant shift in the process for improving Drupal - its “continuous innovation model”. 

Prior to Drupal 8, major Drupal releases (e.g., upgrading from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8) put an emphasis on fundamental architectural changes. Drupal 8 saw the inclusion of many third-party libraries such as Symfony, Twig and Guzzle to provide a clean, modern and more flexible codebase. This complete rewrite of Drupal for Drupal 8 meant that to upgrade from one version to another involved a complete rebuild of your website and a full content migration. 

However, with the release of Drupal 8 and its continuous innovation model, this has changed. The continuous innovation model enables frequent releases of new features, API additions and an easy upgrade path. As a result, there are no longer any big architecture changes when upgrading from Drupal 8 to 9. There is no migration needed, and no need to build a new site, unless you want to. 

As the founder of Drupal, Dries Buytaert himself puts it, "The big deal about Drupal 9 is that it shouldn't be a big deal." 

Why release Drupal 9? 

If it is now so straightforward to add new features and continuously improve Drupal, why do we even need Drupal 9? Why can’t we continue releasing as part of Drupal 8? 

First, to keep Drupal modern, maintainable and performant, deprecated functionality needs to be removed. As Drupal 8 has evolved, there are now better ways to solve certain problems, and other problems are no longer relevant. So, Drupal 9 is an opportunity to clean up the codebase and remove any unused capabilities from Drupal 8. 

Additionally, as Drupal makes use of other open-source technologies (notably the PHP-based Symfony framework) its release cycles need to be more closely aligned with these other systems, syncing with their release timelines to stay on secure, supported versions. That is why Drupal 8’s end of life coincides with Symfony’s 3’s. 

The key dates 

The release date for Drupal 9 was the 3rd June 2020. Support of Drupal 7 sites will continue until November 2022 and Drupal 8 sites will continue until November 2021, although no new features will be added to these sites following the Drupal 9 release. This means that if you have a Drupal 7 or 8 site, you’ll have close to a year to upgrade before the site is no longer supported by the Drupal security team, and may therefore be vulnerable to security issues. Your site will not suddenly stop working once these dates pass, but to ensure your website remains secure, it is strongly advised to upgrade before then. 

Upgrade paths 

From Drupal 8 

The first release of Drupal 9 will be very similar to the last minor release of Drupal 8 (Drupal 8.8.x or 8.9.x), minus any deprecated code and with updated third-party dependencies. This means the upgrade path from Drupal 8 should be relatively straightforward. 

To prepare for this, any  deprecated code in contributed and custom modules can be checked for and updated on existing Drupal 8 sites, ahead of upgrading to Drupal 9.  

Drupal 8 sites, which are dependent on Twig 1, now have optional support for Twig 2 (a dependency of Drupal 9). This means developers can test and identify any problems ahead of upgrading to Drupal 9, making the transition as streamlined as possible. 

From Drupal 7 (or previous to version 7) 

If you have a Drupal 7 site, upgrading to any CMS, Drupal 9 included, is going to take more work: a full rebuild and a migration of your content. Getting everything lined up for an upgrade does take a little time. So, if you’re still using Drupal 7, we’d recommend getting your upgrade roadmap in place now. 

Next steps 

As mentioned above, if your website is currently using Drupal 7, you’ll need to completely rebuild it and migrate your content.  

Already on Drupal 8?

If you have a Drupal 8 site, the first step prior to upgrading to Drupal 9 is to fully update your site to use the most recent version of Drupal’s core code, contributed modules and themes. 

Once your site is up to date, the next step is to assess what modules and custom code needs to be updated. Unlike with previous upgrades (e.g., from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8), readiness for Drupal 9 can be checked ahead of upgrading. A Drupal 9 readiness audit will give you a status report on your site and provide an indication of work needed on custom modules and flag any contributed modules not yet ready. This will provide you with an indication of any work needed, and a roadmap for upgrading to Drupal 9. 

Where deprecated code exists in contributed modules, developers should be working with module maintainers to raise issues and help fix any deprecated code to ensure contributed modules are Drupal 9 compatible. 

Book your readiness audit 

As Drupal experts, we can help you to create your digital roadmap to ensure that you are not left open to any site vulnerabilities when Drupal 7 and 8 become unsupported. 

Get in touch today to discuss your roadmap, or to book a Drupal 9 readiness audit. This audit will help you to gain an understanding of the work needed to prepare your digital estate for Drupal 9 and beyond. 

Why Drupal 

The skills from a community. Expert developers, designers, user experience leaders, testers, project managers, marketers, and users from across the world work together to build Drupal. Choosing Drupal means you are tapping into a huge resource and benefitting from the skills of an entire community of people working on the platform. 

There are no license fees. Unlike many CMS options, Drupal is open source so there are no ongoing licensing costs associated with the platform. 

It grows as you do. There are thousands of free modules and themes that will help you adapt as your market does. 

Accessible as standard. Accessibility capabilities are built into Drupal so you can be assured that your website has the foundations needed for an accessible experience for all. 

A flexible design. The modular approach means that a site using Drupal empowers a content editor to build powerful, flexible pages to suit their needs. 

CMS for the Future. Say goodbye to the regular ‘slash and burn’ cycle of rebuilding your website every 3 or 4 years by adopting the only Enterprise-ready CMS which does not require rebuild for major version upgrades. 

Security. The Drupal community has an effective, transparent process for identifying and fixing security issues in Drupal core and many contributed modules. A core team of security experts assess code and many contributed modules. Notifications and patch or updates are provided to the community when security vulnerabilities are found.  Acquia also provides hosting level mitigation for Drupal security issues, adding a layer of protection beyond most conventional CMS hosts. 

Other benefits of Drupal include: 

• Clean attractive admin interface 

• Simple drag-and-drop page builder 

• Built-in Media Library for handling images and other media 

• Powerful multilingual features  

• API-first architecture for easier integration 

• Fully responsive out-the-box, even the admin interface 

• Popular contributed modules now included in Drupal Core