Since the launch of Drupal 9, many users are confused about whether they need to switch to Drupal 9 right away or upgrade to Drupal 8 and then move to Drupal 9? Here, we state the pros and cons of both and help you make the right decision.
Switching from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9
As the majority of the Drupal users are still running on Drupal 7, most would think of upgrading straight away to Drupal 9 as it would reduce cost and time. However, it has some problems too.
Cost
From the cost perspective, it will cost you the same if you upgrade from Drupal 7 to 9, or from Drupal 7 to 8 to 9. Yes, the reason is, in terms of functionalities, Drupal 9 is only a minor upgrade whereas Drupal 7 to 9 is a whole different thing.
Backward Compatibility
Since Drupal 9 is recently launched, it will take some time for the marketplace to create enough modules. Hence, if there are any errors posted, the Drupal 9 upgrade from Drupal 7 cannot help you date back to Drupal 7, whereas with Drupal 8 the same is possible.
Upgrades & Support
As the Drupal 7 support ends by end of 2021, you need to plan your upgrade quickly else your website can be vulnerable to security threats.
Moving from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 to Drupal 9
The official press release of Drupal 9 states, ‘The big deal about Drupal 9 is … that it should not be a big deal. The best way to be ready for Drupal 9 is to keep up with Drupal 8 updates.’ So, if you are on Drupal 8, switching to Drupal 9 is seamless and not a big deal.
Symphony 4 & Symphony 5 upgrade
Drupal 8 comes with Symphony 4 and Symphony 5 upgrades and Drupal 9 also gets it as a part of its core upgrades. This reduces time and effort when you upgrade from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9.
Removal of Deprecated codes
One of the problems with Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 would be the removal of deprecated codes. Older codes will be marked as deprecated by Drupal. However, our Drupal team has a list of deprecated codes in place to help remove the same for our existing customers and create new modules by avoiding them.
Thus, we have laid down the pros and cons of migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9 or from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8 to Drupal 9. If you still have more questions, schedule a meeting with our Drupal consultants. We are happy to help you.