Drupal 8 End Of Life - Should You Upgrade to Drupal 9?

The only universal truth in life is “Change.” Everything, in the end, evolves for betterment. And Drupal is no different. Like all things in the world, Drupal versions evolve, and older versions reach their end of life.

Yes, you guessed it right! We’re talking about Drupal 8. Drupal 8 is used by 25.8% of websites using Drupal, and roughly 0.3% of all websites are powered by various versions of Drupal 8.

It has helped website owners in various ways, but Drupal 8 is now not going to get security updates, support from the Drupal development community, or updates about fashionable features because it has already reached EOL on 2nd November 2021. In this scenario, Drupal 9 or later versions are the only options for the existing site owners to move on. Many long-time users using Drupal 8 for their Drupal development are concerned about whether they’re ready for Drupal 9 migration services or not.

Why does November 2nd, 2021 mark the end of life for Drupal 8?

It is interesting to know that Drupal has announced Drupal 8 EOL before Drupal 7. After November 2nd, 2021, the sites running on Drupal 8 will not get any security patches and vendor extended support programs. The ultimate reason is that websites running on Drupal 8 can be easily transitioned to Drupal 9. This is because Drupal 9 mainly focuses on updated dependencies and deprecating APIs instead of other fancy things.

Another reason for Drupal 8's end of life is Symfony 3's end of life. Yes, you have heard it right. Symfony 3 is approaching its end of life in November. Drupal 8 heavily relies on Symfony 3, and if it is approaching its EOL, Drupal 8 will be in a precarious position. The longer it exists, the more difficult it will be to manage.

The drupal community has supported Drupal 8.9 for a longer time, but considering the above dependencies, now it is time to move on.

Is it still safe to stay on Drupal 8 even if the end of life?

The straightforward answer to this is a big NO. Considering the third-party dependencies of Drupal 8, if you decide to stick to it even after its EOL, you will surely face a lot of difficulties. The first thing you will be facing is security. Your website will be highly fragile in terms of security as you will not get support from the community. You will have to spend money getting extended support. Also, the community will not invest much time enhancing Drupal 8 modules. This means any modules used in your site will never get frequent updates.

Going to Drupal 9 is the best thing that can happen for your Drupal site. Whether you are on Drupal 7 or Drupal 8, the AddWeb Solution team is happy to help you with Drupal 9 migration services. We have done this for numerous clients of ours and can do this for you too! Click here to check out the Drupal development services we offer.

Original Source Posted by Addweb Solution

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