Time to Upgrade: 7 Reasons to Migrate Your Site from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10

As the tides of technology evolve, so must our digital landscapes. For many websites built on Drupal 7, a pivotal moment is approaching: January 2025 marks the end of the life for this much-loved platform. While Drupal 7 has faithfully served countless organizations for years, continuing its use after this date presents significant security risks and performance limitations.

With the end of security patches, vulnerabilities become open invitations for malicious attackers, putting your website and its data at potential peril. Additionally, outdated technology struggles to keep pace with the demands of modern users and search engines, leading to sluggish performance and diminished user experience.

Therefore, migrating to Drupal 10 is no longer simply an option, but a strategic move for enhancing customer experience. This next-generation content management platform offers enhanced security with a dedicated Drupal security team, superior performance, and an array of new features, empowering your website to thrive in the digital landscape of tomorrow.

So, let’s go ahead and understand what makes Drupal 10 unique and what are the seven compelling reasons that make Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 migration even more imperative.

About Drupal 10

Drupal 10, the latest iteration of the popular open-source content management system (CMS), arrived in 2022, bringing a wave of security enhancements, performance improvements, and features aimed at empowering businesses of all sizes.

Here are the Drupal 10 updates that you must look forward to:

• Olivero: Replacing the Bartik design theme, Olivero brings a sleek, modern interface that's accessible to everyone. The new theme is not just smoother, it even comes with WCAG compliance. Now starting new projects is easier than ever.
• Backend by Claro: Claro delivers improved usability for content management. Expect admin tabs optimized for user experience, mobile-friendly editing, and potentially faster site moderation.



Drupal’s Claro Theme

Source: Drupal

• CKEditor 5: Ditch the expiring CKEditor 4. This new, built-in version lets you edit links and images directly, removes markup from pasted text, and offers a smoother experience.



Source: Drupal

• Modern JavaScript: Replacing the bulky jQuery library with streamlined JavaScript components. These components speed up site loading and overall performance.
• Starterkit Theme Generator: Building themes just got simpler in this new Drupal version. Create themes based on a stable base, easily incorporate updates and bug fixes, and enjoy lasting site stability.
• Symfony 6 & PHP 8.1: Experience enhanced performance and security with Symfony 6's bug fixes and PHP 8.1's speed and prolonged security.

What are the Top 7 Reasons to Migrate from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10?

Drupal 10 is equipped with the enhancements that can make content management a cakewalk for all the teams involved in content creation and management process. As Drupal 7 is very close to its end of life, this is

Here are the seven compelling reasons that explain why you must migrate from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 now:

1. Enhanced security

Drupal 10 has robust security of the Symfony framework and receives regular security updates. It boasts a significantly improved security architecture with features like content trust scoring, improved password hashing algorithms, and better session handling, significantly reducing the risk of attacks.

Drupal 10 removes several modules deemed redundant or insecure in Drupal 7, reducing the potential attack vectors hackers can exploit. It has also incorporated measures like Same-Site Cookies, CSP 3, and Content Security Policy (CSP) Level 3 to enhance security.

2. Improved performance & scalability

Drupal 10 is built with performance in mind, utilizing caching, code optimizations, and lazy loading to ensure faster page load times and improve overall user experience. It is built on the latest PHP versions and utilizes technologies like Twig for faster page loads. It also scales seamlessly to handle increased traffic and complex functionalities. Drupal 10 integrates seamlessly with modern caching solutions, CDNs, and other performance-boosting technologies.

Learn the unique ways to enhance your content personalization strategy with Drupal

3. Mobile friendliness

Drupal 10 supports the intuitive Olivero theme with a clean interface and a responsive design that enables businesses to create mobile-friendly websites

The Drupal 10 Claro admin interface is streamlined and user-friendly, making it easier for editors and administrators to manage content and settings. It features improved layouts, content editing, and accessibility. With WCAG compliance Drupal 10 prioritizes accessibility, ensuring your website is usable by everyone, regardless of abilities.

Drupal’s Olivero Theme

Source: Drupal

4. Accessibility

Drupal 10 prioritizes accessibility through semantic HTML, keyboard navigation, color contrast and clear focus indicators. Developers follow strict coding standards and provide alternative text descriptions for non-text content. The platform offers tools like the Accessibility Module and extensive documentation to further enhance accessibility. The Drupal community actively identifies and addresses accessibility issues, even delaying major releases to ensure a high level of inclusivity for all users.

Drupal 10 is designed to be highly accessible and meet the international standards of WCAG 2.1.

5. Boosted content management

Drupal 10 offers a more intuitive and powerful content editing experience with features like CKEditor 5 integration allows inline editing, image and link management, and removes unwanted markup from pasted content. The drag-and-drop layout builder simplifies page creation and content organization.

Its flexible content structures and taxonomy system make it easier to manage and reuse content across your website. Drupal 10 also provides built-in multilingual support, making it easier to reach a global audience.

Source: Drupal

6. Enhanced SEO capabilities

In Drupal 10, SEO capabilities are better. Now it has improved URL handling, meta tag handling, and structured data. Drupal claims that the updated URLs can boost a business's visibility and expand its organic reach.

Explore the ultimate guide to Drupal’s SEO capabilities and enhance your business performance.

7. Unleash new possibilities

Drupal 10 opens doors to new functionalities with a vast library of contributed modules and themes, covering everything from e-commerce to advanced content management tools. It integrates with modern technologies like GraphQL, REST APIs, and Headless CMS, allowing for innovative and personalized user experience. Drupal 10's flexible architecture allows you to build complex and custom web applications on top of the core platform.

Drupal 7 versus Drupal 10

Feature	Drupal 7	Drupal 10
Release Date	January 5, 2011	December 14, 2022
End-of-life Date	January 5, 2025	November 2028 (estimated)
PHP version support	Up to PHP 7.4	PHP 8.0 and up
Twig support	Limited	Full Twig support for templates and themes
Composer integration	No	Built-in Composer support for managing dependencies
Content editing experience	WYSIWYG editor with limited options	Improved content editing experience with CKEditor 5 and drag-and-drop functionality
Mobile responsiveness	Requires additional modules	Responsive by default
Multilingual support	Requires additional modules	Built-in multilingual support with out-of-the-box translations
Headless CMS capabilities	Limited	Headless capabilities built-in with JSON API and GraphQL
Performance	Can experience performance bottlenecks	Designed for better performance and scalability
Ease of use	Requires more technical expertise	More user-friendly interface with streamlined workflow
Community and support	Large and active, but declining because of EOL	Rapidly growing, strong support from Drupal Association and contributors
Upgrade path	Complex and requires careful planning	Semantic versioning for a smoother transition to future versions

 

What next?

By now, you know that Drupal 10 holds the capability to transform your website and digital customer experience with its mobile friendliness, simple code, enhanced SEO capabilities, all while boosting the security of your Drupal website.

To kickstart Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 migration, begin by evaluating your current website's needs and partnering with a Drupal expert like Altudo to develop a tailored Drupal migration plan.

Altudo goes beyond simply migrating your site. Our in-house Drupal experts offer ongoing support and maintenance, empowering you to fully leverage the power of Drupal 10.

Plan a 1:1 chat with our experienced professional and understand the complexities of Drupal upgrade/migration process. Write to us at marketing@altudo.co and schedule your session.

To explore more in detail about the latest Drupal 10 and its migration journey, download the Ebook .