Mark your calendars! As of this week, Drupal 7’s end-of-life has been officially extended to Saturday, January 5, 2025.
The announcement was made on the opening day of DrupalCon Pittsburgh on Monday, June 5. The extension gives Drupal 7 users an extra year and a bit to make the move to Drupal 9/10. Drupal 9 itself is still scheduled to reach end-of-life on November 1, 2023.
The decision was made in light of the fact that over half of all Drupal sites still operate on D7.
But you still have to upgrade … eventually
The decision to extend Drupal 7 support to January 2025 takes some of the pressure off D7 users, who previously just had half a year to upgrade to a more advanced version of the platform. That said, if you’re still using D7, you will eventually have to migrate. It’s just not as urgent now, and there’s time to plan for it.
Upgrading from Drupal 7 to anything more advanced is a major undertaking requiring full-fledged migration, owing to the fundamental changes made to the platform between versions 7 and 8. As such, it’s a step worth planning for in advance. Expect this process to take between two and eight weeks, depending on the size and complexity of your site.
As we mentioned in our blog post about Drupal 10 a few weeks ago, not all of the contributed modules are ready for D10. If you’re not sure if your site has modules that are D10-compatible, you can find out by installing Upgrade Status on your site. This will tell you which modules are compatible, which ones have a D10 equivalent, and which ones are not yet ready.
This latest announcement from Drupal means there’s room to breathe if you’re still using Drupal 7. But even with a year and a half to go until end-of-life, you’ll still want to start planning your transition to Drupal 10 – if for no other reason because the new platform offers so much more in the way of functionality and flexibility.
