Drupal powers nearly 2% of all websites and holds market share of almost 5%, it is the most popular open source content management system and a strong competitor to WordPress. It has a huge community of more than 1M+ passionate professionals including Drupal Theme developers, researchers, scholars and testers. Drupal is known for its incredible flexibility, scalability, complexity, and advanced security features that safeguards your websites and applications from online hackers.Drupal 9’s release is scheduled for June 2020 and if you are on Drupal 8, then you have perfect opportunity for latest version readiness. Drupal 8 and Drupal 7 official end of life is in November 2021. Drupal 8’s new release cycle provides a simple upgrade path but developers are still not confident about the new version. Thus in this blog, we will find what benefits and how you can move to Drupal 9 version.
What’s new is going to be integrated to Drupal 9?
Since Drupal 9 is based on the same architecture as Drupal 8, limited features are going to be released with the upcoming version. Drupal 8 was focused on releasing new features every six months, while the new version is more about code clean-up. Being a cleaned-up version this offers a couple of prominent updates and improvements for Drupal Development service.
1. Built-in Backward Compatibility
Drupal 9 is based on the Drupal 8 architecture and will support built-in backward compatibility to ensure Drupal 8 components can easily work with the new version. This means, to perform the migration job in a simple manner, you would have to keep your core, themes, and modules up-to-date.
2. Third-party Dependencies
Seeing the current trend, Drupal depends on third-party elements including Symfony, Twig, Guzzle, and CKEditor. As we know both Symfony and Twig are soon to be upgraded, thus Drupal 9 will be shipped with upgraded versions of third-party dependencies, Symfony 4/5 and Twig 2, to ensure security and performance is not compromised.
3. New Theme Integration
On the visual front, Drupal 9 is going to get remarkable facelift. The current default theme Bartik, which was released with Drupal 7 in 2011, will be completely replaced by Olivero a new default theme for Drupal in 2020. As compared to the earlier theme that seems outdated, the new default theme will be simple, modern, accessible, focused, and flexible. This will be a game changer for Drupal website design services for building engaging websites.
Why Should You Upgrade to Drupal 9?
If you are still confused why you should upgrade to Drupal 9, some important reasons:
• Drupal 7 and Drupal 8 end-of-life (EOL) is in November 2021.
• Due to no security patches and support available for the older versions, you need to secure your Drupal website against possible security and compatibility issues.
• Take benefit of the latest features and enhancements to reduce the usage of third-party dependencies, extensions and modules.
• Simplify and clean up content to further enhance user experience and design.
How to Prepare for Drupal 9 Upgrades?
Regardless of whether you’re moving your website from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 or Drupal 8 to Drupal 9, some tips need to be followed:
• Keep the Drupal Core Updated
• Detect and Fix the Deprecated Code
• Keep Your Modules Up-to-Date
• Keep the Contributed Modules Up to Date
• Check Your Custom Code
• Don’t Hesitate to Automate
• Review the Release Notes
So, these are some of the tips that need to be followed before making an upgrade. If these tips followed Drupal development will become smooth, simple and robust.
Wrapping Up
Drupal 9 is releasing in next few months, it is the perfect opportunity to make a smart move by upgrading from old version to the latest version. This will help your business website to drive users in large numbers and stay competitive in the market.
