Drupal 7.0 was released on January 5, 2011 and became a major milestone for the platform. It included significant content editing enhancements (e.g. the Entity system and fields in Core), better performance, built-in image handling, a new administrative theme, security improvements, and built-in automated testing.
These advances dramatically accelerated Drupal's popularity. By 2015, Drupal.org was reporting over one million D7 installations, and there were likely hundreds of thousands or millions more.
But even more revolutionary changes were right around the corner – a complete rebuilding of the platform. This new generation debuted as Drupal 8.0.0 in November, 2015. While D7 was a big leap forward for Drupal, D8 was transformational.
Built from the ground up on Symfony PHP, a robust framework with industry standard code quality, maintainability, and security features not offered in D7's homegrown PHP framework, the new generation of Drupal now far exceeds the capabilities and user experience of D7.
And yet, many organizations have hung onto Old Reliable way past its prime. So many that the "End-of-Life" (EOL) for D7 was extended twice – past the EOL of two of its successors, Drupal 8 and Drupal 9.
The reprieve, however, ended. Drupal 7 was officially retired on January 5, 2025, on the 14th anniversary of its production premiere. If you still have a D7 website, it is critical you have it upgraded to Drupal 11 – or at least Drupal 10 in the short term.
What is EOL?
In short, for software it means it will no longer be supported by its developers. It does not receive updates, security patches, or technical support, making it vulnerable to security risks and incompatibility issues.
Drupal is built with and relies on other platforms and software languages (e.g. PHP and mySQL) and then also integrates with yet a whole other range of applications (like Stripe, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Salesforce, and MailChimp).
Over time, this array of software systems evolves, and if a Drupal version is not maintained to keep in step with those changes, a website built on that version could start to throw errors or cease to function altogether.
Will my Drupal 7 website break?
Someday, yes. If a problem arises with D7, the Drupal community will not address it through official channels.
So then what? You will need to find and hire a developer who will build a custom patch for you. And you will repeat that cycle every time a security risk or functional bug is identified.
But who is looking for those flaws? The thousands of developers in the Drupal community are now focused on improving Drupal 11 and on security for Drupal 11 and Drupal 10. A more ominous scenario is that a malevolent actor finds a flaw, does not share the news, and exploits it until someone else discovers the problem.
But beyond all that, there will come a day when your Drupal 7 website will simply stop working. Drupal 7 does not run on the newest versions of PHP. And the newest versions of Linux – the server operating system – do not support the old versions of PHP compatible with Drupal 7. Your IT department or your hosting provider will upgrade Linux to a newer version soon. You need to upgrade your Drupal 7 site before that happens.
Upgrading Drupal 7
Upgrading from D7 does require some work. But there is a silver lining: it will be the last big rebuild and migration your Drupal website will undergo. Beginning with Drupal 8, the transition from one major release to the next (e.g. D10 to D11) is a much more seamless affair, with a continuous, granular improvement process through minor releases that obviates disruptive re-engineering of the platform.
The rewards for the effort are many. You get even more Drupal goodness with all the new features and refinements that have been created since 2015, like integrated media management and the Media Library, Layout Builder, inline editing, and enhanced revision history. And you get superior capabilities through new modules, including ECA (a powerful triggered-actions system), Easy Email, Image Effects, DropzoneJS, and SVG Image Field.
Seize the moment
It is essential we start your Drupal 7 upgrade now. We need to assess your current content structure, audit your module library, plan for a new information architecture, and prepare for and execute a migration.
The result will be a better, more robust, easier to use, more sustainable website with a longer, more secure life ahead of it.
Your Drupal 10 website is almost here
We look forward to making your Drupal 7 upgrade happen.