Upgrading to latest Drupal
From modern Drupal; 8, 9, 10 and above
Drupal 8, 9, 10 and beyond
In short: anything is possible!
The project duration will depend on the complexity of your site and its various extras, customisations and processes.
We'll work with you to develop and refine estimates, then carry out the upgrade with minimal interruption to your site.
Get ready for a seamless upgrade
If you’ve gotten stuck on Drupal 8 or 9, CM can absolutely help. We’ve been through a large number of Drupal 10 upgrades over the last few years, and that experience is fresh and ready to get you moving.
Upgrading to current Drupal generally takes hours to days, and depends on your specific collection of installed custom and contrib modules. The more you have, and the older things are, the more complex your estimate will be. But CM love a challenge, and we will be able to get you seamlessly upgraded.
Get compliant with the latest secure code, and benefit from the latest improvements
Ever moving forward, the latest version of Drupal has improvements and fixes that you ought to be benefitting from.
And if you're not on a currently-supported version of Drupal, you're additionally exposing your business, data and clients to huge risk.
The upgrade process
Updating a modern Drupal site to latest Drupal involves these steps
Building an understanding of your existing site(s), data and functionality
A series of discovery conversations and investigations help us get up to speed on what we're working with and what we're working towards.
Reviewing all the installed contrib and custom modules
With access to your site, we review the installed and created modules used on your site. The older the modules are, the more tricky the upgrade can be.
Adapting custom code to meet current code standards
Core Drupal deprecates APIs regularly, and has changed significantly since D8, so your custom code is likely to need some manual and automated review.
Untangling the dependency web in order to update all contrib modules and run the database updates
When upgrading all your modules at the same time issues can arise! Our team may need time to figure out how to get everything running through seamlessly.
Thorough post-upgrade testing
The upgrade is run multiple times to ensure reliability, and you're given access to the result. Together we verify that everything works well, and your team sign off when they're happy.
With almost all clients now on modern Drupal, we have worked through plenty of upgrades from 8-9, 9-10 and onward. Each has different interesting facets; most notably, the earlier 8-9 upgrades are more involved due to the higher volume of change in the ecosystem at that point.
Don't want to upgrade?
We know that as a Director, CTO or CMO it's crucial to be well-informed.
Our honest advice is designed to challenge thinking and questions assumptions, not just reel off marketing fluff.
If you're considering leaving the Drupal platform rather than upgrading, this is our recommended reading.