Making sense of Drupal versions (7, 8, 9 & 10)

Sylvain Reiter -


Hey - Welcome to this first edition of Digital Blitz, your 2-minute brief on all things digital in UX, Tech and Compliance.

Today we'll talk about Drupal!

Drupal, one of the most popular CMS powering millions of sites, such as Tesla, many London Councils and even Nasa!

You might have heard about Drupal 7, Drupal 8, Drupal 9... and now we're already talking about 10! There are so many versions, it's so confusing, right?

It's actually quite simple.


Drupal 7 is most popular as it's been around for almost 10 years: Jan 2011 - can you believe it? But it has grown old and will stop being supported in November 2022. It's quite a major upgrade so we recommend starting now!

Drupal 8 will stop being supported in a year, but the upgrade to 9 is easier as they are sharing the same underlying framework and theme engine but again, it's time to start now.

Drupal 9 just came out and is a blast - we are already upgrading clients and all new projects are starting on it. It's really a major upgrade form 7. It has:

  • Much better performance
  • A new media library
  • Better accessibility
  • An API-driven approach to integrate with external systems

And for us as developers, we will work on new and clean code, being so much more efficient and deliver better value for money.

And now, we're starting to talk about Drupal 10 already.

  • The major upgrade is "Automated security updates". Can you imagine not getting an email from your agency every month about patching?
  • It will also come with a new Admin theme and new menu structure
  • It will integrate the latest javascript libraries (Vue & React)

So if your site is running D7 and you need to upgrade, or if you are already on 8 or 9 and need to improve the customer experience or add personalisation,  just get in touch. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me on Twitter to keep learning with me and grow your career in digital.

Until next time, stay safe and see you soon.