We are finishing the process of upgrading Drupal 8 sites to Drupal 9, and can say that the process is a lot easier than it was upgrading 6 to 7. This is because starting with Drupal 8, Drupal switch to work with the underlying Symfony and Twig frameworks, and will remain on these going forward. This will have future upgrades to be more gradual and smoother than previous steps between 5, 6 and 7 versions.
“The big deal about Drupal 9 is … that it shouldn’t be a big deal.”
Dries Buytaert, Project Lead
Now we are focusing our attention to upgrading our remaining Drupal 7 sites to Drupal 9.
Some features highlights for Drupal 9 include:
- Views module
- moved into the core
- Organizing Pages with Blocks
- Structured Content
- View Modes and Form Modes
- multiple display options for content in different contexts
- Migration
- Drupal core has built-in support for migrating data from Drupal 6-7 and outside systems like WordPress
- Front-End Developer Experience
- HTML5, additional helper libraries, accessibility enhancements, enhanced base themes, UI elements
Updating to Drupal 9
Acquia has created a useful tool for checking compatibility.
These are good for getting an estimate of what’s going to be involved for your project.
When you’re ready to start working on the Drupal 9 readiness of the modules installed on your site, use the Upgrade Status on your current site to generate a report. And help fix some common issues.
Hopefully, Drupal 9 will be as smooth as it seems and future updates will be less dramatic. We have all felt with having to rework a site or not have it supported. It seems like Drupal has hit its stride providing functionality with smoother transitions in between versions.