Getting ready for Drupal 10

7 December 2021 - by Kian Rieben

Since Drupal 8, the dependencies with Symfony and other third-party components ─ CKEditor, Twig, etc. ─ imply a change in the release dates and methodology. Despite a temporary less predictable releases plan, the consequences are very positive for Drupal. We can underline some of the main advantages:

Upgrades to newer version are much simpler and less expensive;
The newer versions will be more stable, right from their release date;
Drupal is more powerful than ever with all those third-party components that provide a technological leap forward.

Here is what you should know and do if your Drupal instance is on...

Drupal 7

You should upgrade to Drupal 9 as soon as possible as Drupal 7 will not be supported anymore from November 2023.
This upgrade is likely to be a full website refactoring. The design and construction of a complete website as well as the possible migration of content should be budgeted in consequence.

Drupal 8

You should upgrade to Drupal 9 as soon as possible as Drupal 8 is not supported anymore since November 2021. The upgrade is not very expensive and has no impact on editors and visitors. There is therefore no need to wait any longer to do it.

Drupal 9

The end of life of Drupal 9 is scheduled for November 2023 and the Drupal 10 release is planned on December 14, 2022. Thus, the upgrade to Drupal 10 should be done between the end of 2022 and 2023. The major uncertainty is about CKEditor that will have to be upgraded from version 4 to version 5. As the data produced with CKEditor 4 may not be compatible with CKEditor 5, efforts will have to be invested in making sure the transition happens smoothly without data loss.

Generally speaking, if you anticipate those major upgrades, it is usually possible to decide on which yearly budget to do the upgrade as it’s possible to postpone the upgrade for a few months.

And for the future?

It’s difficult to provide precise and safe predictions as the future mostly depends on decisions and evolutions that will happen… in the future.

What we can expect is:

Less expensive major upgrades as mentioned above: likely upgrades from 9 to 10 will cost even less than from 8 to 9.
For version 11, it is too early to say anything about the timing and costs. For example, it is not yet known whether Drupal 10 will be based on Symfony 5 or 6, which could significantly change its lifespan.
Potentially a higher cost of regular maintenance (minor/security updates).

Indeed, the major change is that the next version is built inside the current version. By the time the new version is launched, the current version will be close to the new one, provided that the minor updates have been made.