Drupal is the oldest CMS out there in the market and being an open-source CMS it has subsequently has gained a lot of users in the past 2 decades. The last most used Drupal version was D7, launched in the year 2011 and after some time they rolled out another version of Drupal - D8. Recently, In early June 2020, Drupal launched its latest version of CMS - Drupal 9. What does this mean for D7 users? Several Drupal Development companies claim that it’ll be difficult from D7 to D9 directly.
According to research, out of 1.1 million Drupal users, only a handful of users have upgraded their version of D7 to D8. Why? Simply because upgrading from one version to another in Drupal was quite similar to moving from one CMS to another.
But with the launch of D9, Drupal is planning to end its support to D7 by the end of November 2021. Drupal will withdraw its extensive community support from D7. Therefore, it’s no more a choice anymore but a necessity to upgrade your CMS framework to either D8 or D9.
Drupal 9
With the latest release, Drupal learned from its mistakes. Now, Drupal has shifted its focus more on User Experience and Security. Drupal’s previous versions had a lot of difficulties but being in business for more than 2 decades, Drupal has collected some loyalists and its community understands the benefits drupal offers.
Here are some of the new benefits added in Drupal 9-
Backward Compatibility
Drupal’s biggest in previous updates was its backward compatibility. Backward Compatibility shows how much the latest version is compatible with the previous ones and supports the functionalities of legacy systems.
Drupal has overcome this by creating D9 as a Backward Compatible system that supports the functionalities of its predecessors. Therefore, the newly upgraded system of Drupal CMS will be able to use D8’s modules, data, and configurations, something that was lacking with D7 and D8 versions.
Enhanced Performance
With the D9 upgrade, Drupal has included more responsive versions for images that allow users to set the best-fit images for mobile versions while exhausting the least amount of data. Users can leverage the features such as BigPipe, that increases the page loading performance, for implementing effective workflows.
D9 also added an efficient content workflow feature that lets you handle multiple workflows in a single framework. It’s Multilingual support also extends the reach of a user across the globe.
Cleaner Codebase
Drupal 8 and other versions use to carry a lot of deprecated code within their framework. D9 removed the dependencies of deprecated codes in D8, creating a cleaner codebase for the new framework. How’s this going to affect the new system you ask?
Deprecated codes are those legacy codes that are marked as not useful as they have been superseded by a new and enhanced version of code. Therefore, for D8 modules that want to work in the D9 environment, they first need to be cleansed and all the deprecated codes need to be eliminated.
This lets you develop a more agile and cleaner codebase eventually affecting the website’s performance.
Headless CMS
Drupal’s developers are keen on creating a more advanced Headless CMS so as to enhance the user experience with the help of front-end javascript frameworks like React or AngularJS. Further, both D8 and D9 versions support the API-first approach.
A headless CMS offers Front-end independence to the developers, allows them to reuse the components, and offers easier resourcing.
D9 is more robust, scalable, flexible, and accessible than its predecessors.
Do you Need to Upgrade?
Top Drupal Development Companies that offer Drupal module development services find D9 to be the most exclusive and important update in Drupal’s existence.
It is better to update D7 to D8 and then to D9 rather than directly jumping from D7 to D9 as most of the modules of D7 are not Compatible with the D9 version. Further, the D8 to D9 migration is simple and easy but the D7 to D8 is a little bit complex as you have to completely rebuild your website. It is better to get in touch with a Drupal 8 Custom Module development service provider for the migration. A Simple website is easier to migrate but the more complex working of your website gets, the harder it is to migrate.
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