Drupal 7 was officially released in 2011, making it quite old in web years, though it still powers hundreds of thousands of websites worldwide.
Drupal 8 was released in 2015, but the path to upgrading has never been an easy one for Drupal websites (prior to 8). So our recommendation for most Drupal 7 site owners has been to wait– wait until you have the time, budget and other resources needed to do a full redesign and migration to Drupal 8.
But Drupal 7 isn’t going to last forever.
It’s official end of life has already been decided–November, 2021. A full ten years after its original release, Drupal 7 will no longer be officially supported. What this means is no more security patches or bug fixes.
It won’t just stop working, but without official support, Drupal 7 sites will become vulnerable to crashes, hacks and other vulnerabilities. There are private companies who will continue to support Drupal 7 sites after 2021 in exchange for a support contract. But officially, it will be unsupported and after 10 years of service, most sites could benefit greatly from a more modern CMS.
But when is the best time to upgrade? What will it take? What are potential problems, or gains? And why should you continue using Drupal in the future? Let’s break down these questions one by one.