Drupal 7 Upgrade to Drupal 8

When will Drupal 8 be released?

Drupal 8 will be released on 19 November 2015 according to the Drupal.org Drupal 8 development cycle page.

Is it too early to upgrade to Drupal 8?

It depends. If the site you are planning to build is relatively simple and doesn't require a wide range of modules, then Drupal 8 could be a suitable choice. If your proposed site is complex, then we would recommend that you hold off until the Drupal 8 contrib modules catch up.

Is it a big job to upgrade to Drupal 8?

The upgrade promises to be easier than the upgrade from Drupal 6 to 7, but we'll have to wait and see. There is nothing quite like taking a real site, with real content, and a load of contrib modules through an upgrade procedure before passing judgement.

What makes Drupal 8 so special?

Improved mobile support: You'll notice this most on the Drupal administration pages.
Better multi-lingual support: D7 was better than D6 at handling multiple languages, but D8 hopes to make it even easier to manage.
Configuration Management: A better process for capturing the Drupal config.
Accessibility / HTML5 / Twig: Overhaul of the front-end technologies to improve accessibility and the theming layer.
More functional core: With more options for structuring data and rendering content.
Usage of external libraries: That make Drupal even more powerful and flexible.

How long will Drupal 7 be around for?

A long time. The time gap between the release of Drupal 7 and Drupal 8 will probably end up being not far off 5 years, and if it takes a similar period between Drupal 8 and Drupal 9, then we can be assured of Drupal 7 support until at least 2020.

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