What’s new in Drupal 9? Full Guide for Drupal 9 Upgrade
By: Binal Prajapati
Tags: Drupal Development, Drupal 8, Drupal Upgrade, Drupal 9, Drupal

Want to move from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 upgrade? Full Guide for Drupal 9 Upgrade

What’s new in Drupal 9? Full Guide for Drupal 9 Upgrade

Learn about the amazing Drupal 9 features and find a comprehensive guide for the upgrade process and update now.

Quick Summary: What’s the talk about Drupal 9 in the market? Will I benefit from Drupal 9 download? This blog encloses everything that you want to know about Drupal 9 features. Most importantly, understand why it is high time to update your Drupal web app and the mandatory things you need to upgrade.

Introduction

Drupal 9 is out just a few months ago, since June 2020. With this fact, it becomes inevitable for businesses to upgrade their existing Drupal version so that you can attain all the latest security updates and wholesome functionality.

I understand that for you, upgrading brings you the weariness and load as if shifting your entire CMS. Well, I must say that such was a thing of the past. You no more need to fret about the troubles of upgrading to the latest version of Drupal 9.

I can say with a surety that upgrading from your Drupal 7 or Drupal 8 to 9 upgrade is an effortless task. But before learning the upgrading process, let me tell you why you should upgrade to Drupal 9.

Drupal 9 upgrade will support you in case of updates for dependencies on stable versions.

Auto-removal of deprecated code before the release of Drupal 9.

Drupal 9 is not a new invention of Drupal; it is just the stable Drupal 8 version after removing deprecated code and third-party dependencies.

You should make a move to Drupal 9 upgrade now because the support for Drupal 8 will end in November 2021. As well as the community support for Drupal 7 will also end by November 2021.

What’s New in Drupal 9 Upgrade?

You will find all that you had with Drupal 8 in Drupal 9 as well. And after November 2021, you will also get support for security fixes. The best of Drupal 9 features is that you can easily upgrade from Drupal 8 to 9 without a hassle. Moreover, biannually, more features will be added to Drupal 9 so that you can leverage the entrepreneurial benefits.

Here are the noteworthy Drupal 9 features:

1. Backward Compatible

Drupal 9 is compatible with its forerunner- i.e., with Drupal 8. Hence, if you have created any data, modules, or configurations on Drupal 8 then you will be able to use it on Drupal 9 too. However, when you upgrade from Drupal 7 to Drupal 8, it wasn’t the same.

An essential part of being backward compatible is that Drupal 9 doesn’t lay any barriers on your speed or performance while coping with the historical baggage. The community lays an intentional effort to break the coding and not the data. This support makes Drupal an up-to-date and fast technology that keeps the clutter at bay.

2. Faster and Better Performance

Drupal 9 provides responsive images that save big time data consumption when accessing Drupal 9 mobile applications. Dries Buytaert says that after the release of Drupal 9.1, the community will notice faster website performance. Until Drupal 9 improves your app performance in the following ways:

BigPipe improves initial page loading

You can enable multiple workflows using Content Workflow

Enjoy multiple language capabilities

Drupal 9 gives structured content to encompass phone, email, date, and time.

3. Cleaner Code Base

To improve your website performance, Drupal 9 comes with the elimination of deprecated Drupal 8 code. It provides you a clear and cleaner version of Drupal. Those who want to upgrade from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 they first need to remove the deprecated code, because the code marked deprecated is no longer supported by Drupal.

4. Symfony and Twig

With Drupal 9 you get the newer versions of Symfony and Twig. Get enabled with Symfony 4 or 5 instead of Symfony 3 and get Twig 2.0. Your developers will experience improvement in the system and you will get ensured security along with a better performance with these updated versions.

5. Removed and Replaced Panelizer

In place of the Layout Builder, Drupal 9 provides you a Panelizer which is the key player here.

6. Headless CMS

Both Drupal 8 and 9 put the front-end at the forefront as the founder wants to enhance the user experience. The Drupal community capitalizes tremendously on Headless CMS, which gives:

Freedom of front-end

Create once- publish anywhere

Easy Resourcing

API-first approach

These amazing Drupal 9 new features make it very easy for the developers to learn, adapt, and leverage its accessibility, scalability, and flexibility.

Check out What’s the deal with Drupal 9 in this video.

Why Should You Upgrade to Drupal 9?

As I mentioned earlier, the support for Drupal 8 and Drupal 7 ends in November 2021. This is the prime reason for you to update your Drupal version.

Though you may be thinking that your Drupal 7/8 website runs fine by far, and there is no need to upgrade. I will present three reasons in front of you that make you realize why you must upgrade your Drupal version:

The Drupal security team will no longer provide security to your website or its users if you do not upgrade to the latest version Drupal 9.

All your Drupal 7 and 8 projects will show flagged or not supported. This may inhibit your third-party scanning.

Acquia and Pantheon, the leading hosting providers, will not support Drupal 7/8, and hence you will have to take the responsibility of hosting your website and configure.

However, you do not worry about your websites being stopped, because even after the support ends for Drupal 7 and 8, your website will still be ongoing.

What are The Prerequisites for Getting Drupal 9 Upgrade?

The process of upgrading from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 is straightforward and easy. All you need are these primary things when updating Drupal:

Modules

There are two types of modules- the Drupal community contributes the first one, and the other kind are customarily created for your website. For all your custom modules, you first need to remove all the deprecated codes of V 8.8 or 8.9 and update the modules to use them in Drupal 9.

The same goes for the community contributed modules; you either need to get the community’s updated modules or share your update with them with a pull request.

Themes

Drupal themes are not dependent on the Drupal API; hence it is easier to update your themes just like your custom Drupal modules. So, in any case, no theme will be able to function with the deprecated code.

Data

The data migration from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 version is just like a mini release- effortless. It is an easy and simple process for Drupal core and community distributed modules.

What is the Update Process?

To update your Drupal version 8 to version 9, you need to follow this process of five steps.

Step 1: Prepare the server

The first step is a critical one. You need to update your server to the following setup:

Step 2: Update to Drupal 8.8 or 8.9

To ease your task, Drupal has brought the version 8.8 or 8.9 intermediaries before you straightaway switch to Drupal 9. To eliminate your dependencies, update to either of Drupal 8.8 or Drupal 8.9 and check with any of the error checking tools to trace and eradicate deprecated code.

Step 3: Upgrade Status Module

This upgrade status module is a savior. As you download this module and install, you will know if there are any errors that you should be concerned about before the upgrade. Here, in this step, you get to analyze your Drupal setup.

Step 4: Upgrade Custom Code

Next, you should now upgrade all your custom modules and themes with the old code dependencies that will no longer be supported in Drupal 9. By now, you must assure that all your functions and actions are compatible with Drupal 8.8 or 8.9.

Step 5: Update Drupal Core Code & Database

Finally, it is time that you make a move from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9. Go ahead only if there are no errors in Drupal 8.8 or 8.9 version installation. Update the Core and Database by running the update.php in the root directory.

The Transition From Drupal 8 to 9

I will solve the most found questions that young developers and entrepreneurs face when they have decided to upgrade from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 version. Let me start by giving the technical answers to how to upgrade from Drupal 8.7 and Drupal 8.8 to Drupal 9.

Q. How to upgrade from Drupal 8.7 or earlier to Drupal 9?

A. To get the upgrade of Drupal 9, it is essential that you first get to the stable and first minor release of Drupal 8, which is Drupal 8.8. Drupal 8.8 has full compatibility with Drupal 9, whereas any previous releases are unlikely to match with Drupal 9.

You may like to read: Upgrade Your Website From Drupal 7 to Drupal 8: A Step-by-Step Guideline

Thus, you must completely update your core and contributed themes and modules to Drupal 8 before you move to Drupal 9 upgrade. You may choose to update the most recent releases of Drupal 8.8.x or 8.9.x for the best results. The advantage is that you will face minimal steps in upgrading your database from 8.8.x or 8.9.x to Drupal 9 upgrade.

The last thing to check is that none of your custom code uses any deprecated code in Drupal v 8.8.x or 8.9.x. And you are ready to run the update.php file to update your code codebase to Drupal 9.

Q. How to upgrade from Drupal 8.8 or later to Drupal 9?

A. When upgrading from Drupal 8.8 or higher versions to Drupal 9 you just need to assure that all your custom and contributed modules are compatible with Drupal 8.8+ sites. You can check the status of your upgrade through Upgrade Status.

Verify that none of your theme/s is using deprecated code and is compatible with Drupal 9. You are now good to use the update.php file and update your core codebase to the latest Drupal 9.

Where Can We See Drupal Making Its Mark?

Let me now share with you the successful examples of companies that are using Drupal.

Flashpoint Marketing

The CEO of Flashpoint Marketing praises the Drupal community and shares that their platform reached an excellent height using Drupal, and they envision a bright future as well.

Redactive Media

A leading platform of digital magazines, live events, and much more has used Drupal over the traditional CMS and has benefited from Drupal 9 new features. The developers of Redactive Media were so much in favor of using Drupal because of its reduced build time and open-source nature.

Upgrade to Drupal 9 with Us

As you are now aware of the fruits of switching to Drupal 9 upgrade and the right time to do so, tie hands with us- hire Drupal developers and ensure outstanding results. Our experienced strategists ensure you a smooth migration experience for Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 upgrade.

Conclusion

Bacancy Technology is the best Drupal development company that provides customized Drupal services to build secure, flexible, scalable, and modern web applications. If you want to revamp your existing Drupal website, our proficient Drupal experts will enable you to follow the Drupal 9 upgrade by following the standard procedure. We follow an Agile methodology for developing your web applications, which gives a holistic and business-specific approach.