Drupal 7 End of Life: Support Ending Jan 5, 2025

Businesses are sleepwalking into a critical deadline. Drupal 7 reaches its end of life on 5th January 2025.

Did you know that there are approximately 317,000 Drupal 7 websites operating that are about to face a critical deadline (Source). From the 5th January 2025, security updates and support for this version will be ending, leaving some businesses facing security and data protection risks if they fail to act promptly.

Drupal 7 was initially released in January 2011 (over 13 years ago) and due to a quirk in the development lifecycle, Drupal 7 has enjoyed extended support until now outliving even Drupal 8 and 9. The time has come where even Drupal 7 will stop receiving critical security updates, reaching its end of life.

For those with websites on versions 8 and 9, don't breathe a sigh of relief just yet. You could be in for some sleepless nights too as these versions are already unsupported as of Nov 2021 for Drupal 8 and Nov 2023 for Drupal 9. If you’re running one of these versions, get in touch with us today to get upgraded.

Drupal is an amazing tool for building the world’s most ambitious websites. It provides a robust and secure CMS solution. With over 1 million developers, designers, and trainers, you are in safe hands knowing that you are supported by a passionate and talented community...well, for now at least.

If you are thinking “2025 – it's ages away! Upgrading Drupal 7 can go into next year's plan and budget". You might want to think again. The bottom line is, it's crunch time right now.

If you don't have a plan in place for when Drupal 7 reaches it's end of life, you open yourself up to the risk of vulnerabilities and data breaches which exposes you to financial penalties and reputational damage. When it comes your Drupal upgrade, the best time to start planning was yesterday and the second best is today. So, start now.

In short, if you do not upgrade from Drupal 7, you risk losing control of your website. With less control of security, your vulnerability to cyber threats escalates. A rapidly growing risk for businesses of all sizes. Hackers actively seek out weaknesses within your website. Without the capability to add timely security patches and tap into the expertise of the Drupal community, your site becomes a prime target for attacks. No business is immune to this risk. Whether large or small, every business has valuable data ripe for the picking. 

Delaying the Drupal 7 upgrade for even a few months exposes your site to significant security breaches, leading to a lot of headaches to put right. Act now to safeguard your digital assets and protect your business from potential chaos.

Drupal 7 will be end of life when the clock strikes midnight on 5th January 2025, but your Drupal 7 website won’t suddenly vanish!! But, it is mission critical to migrate your site to the newest, supported Drupal software if you want to avoid a whole bunch of problems. Failure to migrate not only leaves your website open to security breaches but also means you will be unable to meet the legal requirements of GDPR. 

Thinking you’ve got plenty of time to address the Drupal 7 end of life?

Think again. Delaying these essential updates can lead to a cascading list of immediate and long-term problems. What seems like a secure setup now, could quickly unravel, leaving you scrambling to fix security breaches. And the fallout doesn’t stop there. Your brand’s reputation is on the line. With your security and privacy levels stagnating and the risk of damaging cyber-attacks looming, customer trust and confidence in your website will undoubtedly be affected.

What would be our advice to you? Do not ignore the Drupal 7 end of life deadline. Act now. Make sure that you are covered and take back control. Working together, you'll get peace of mind that your website is performing it’s best for you and your customers. With specialist Drupal agency Pivale, this process is as simple as it should be:

• Book a free 20 min chat with our team. Share your Drupal story and see if working together would be a good fit.
• Book a comprehensive audit. Our team will carry out a 1-day technical audit to identify the Drupal version and what changes you need going forward. 
• Upgrade to Drupal 10 or 11. Once upgraded, sleep easier knowing that your site is secure. Gain access to Drupal security, a fifty strong team of experts to support with technical and security issues.

Audit prerequisites:

• The Pivale team will sign an NDA giving you complete trust.
• Access to your back-end admin.
• Access to server

We realise the urgency of this and want you to as well.

Drupal 7 end of life of is here. The time to take action is now!