What happens to Drupal 7 now that Drupal 9 has been released?

Drupal 7 community support is provided until January 2025

In the past, after a new major version, support would only be kept for the prior major version (such as Drupal 6 becoming end-of-life shortly after the release of Drupal 8). In light of the impact of COVID-19 on our community, Drupal 7 is supported until January 5, 2025.

This means Drupal 7 will be supported throughout Drupal 9's life. Stable migration support for core modules is a requirement of Drupal 9, and that even includes a supported migration path from Drupal 6.

Upgrading from Drupal 7 to 8 (and then to 9) or directly to 9

Now that Drupal 9 is released, you can upgrade directly from Drupal 7 to Drupal 9. In most cases, this is your best upgrade route as it assures that your upgraded site has maximum expected life.

Alternatively, you can upgrade to Drupal 8 first and then eventually to Drupal 9. Reasons to upgrade first to Drupal 8 might include that your site requires a functionality provided by modules that are available in Drupal 8 but not yet in a Drupal 9-compatible release. Drupal 9 is identical to the final Drupal 8 release, but with deprecated code removed and third-party dependencies updated. Upgrading to Drupal 8 first will make the eventual upgrade to Drupal 9 far easier.

There are three key tools used when migrating a Drupal 7 site to Drupal 8 or Drupal 9:

1. Drupal core provides the migrate module suite to execute data/content migrations from Drupal 7. This provides a good opportunity to build your site in the best way in Drupal 8 or Drupal 9 and import content to the right new places.
2. The Drupal 7 version of the Upgrade Status module summarizes the Drupal 8 or Drupal 9 availability of the modules currently in use.
3. The Drupal Module Upgrader is a command-line script that scans the source of a Drupal 7 module, flags any code that requires updating to Drupal 8 or 9, points off to any relevant API change notices, and (where possible) will actually attempt to convert the Drupal 7 code automatically to the Drupal 8 and 9 version. Drupal Module Upgrader has been updated to not use deprecated APIs in the generated code, meaning that if you are doing an upgrade first to Drupal 8 your eventual path to Drupal 9 will be smoother.

To ensure a Drupal 8 update is also compatible with Drupal 9, use drupal-check and/or the Drupal 8 version of Upgrade Status in your development and/or continuous integration environment and pay attention to Drupal 9 incompatibilities in your custom code.