How do I keep my Drupal 7 website online after the D7 end-of-life?

On January 5th, 2025, Drupal will officially stop supporting Drupal 7. That means no more community-based updates such as bug fixes, new features, or security updates. Do you still have a D7 website that needs to stay online longer? If so, we'd be happy to help you out.
Drupal 7 extended security support

LAST UPDATE 18/06/2024

Dropsolid supports Drupal 7 beyond January 2025. Dropsolid is one of the leading official Drupal EOL & migration partners selected by the Drupal Association. This means we're 1 of the 3 official EOL vendors Globally!

Dropsolid to the rescue: 

  • Enterprise Drupal specialists with a reputation in the community and with a full Drupal service
  • High-value EOL program: access to patches before release, bounty program with ethical hackers, proactive monitoring, ...
  • Buying you time to migrate, taking away migration pressure
  • Access to enterprise Drupal 7 developers  to continue development
  • Protecting high-value customers on D7, such as the EU, National and local governments, large enterprises, and organisations.

Do you have an enterprise application that needs quality security and support?

Stay secure on D7 with Dropsolid. Dropsolid secures your past and builds your future.

My Drupal 7 website still needs to stay online after the EOL date, now what?

Drupal 7 is going "end-of-life," EOL. In the tech world, that means that certain software will no longer be sold, updated, or actively supported technically as of the EOL date. For Drupal 7, that means specifically that as of January 2025, the team behind Drupal will no longer develop new components or release security updates.

Drupal 10 has been around for a while now. Do you still need to keep your Drupal 7 website online? This could be for various reasons: your new website has been delayed, there is no budget, your organization is undergoing a transformation that is delaying your project... Or do you have another good reason to stay on Drupal 7 for a while? No reason to panic. We have the right solution for you. Our Drupal experts still support a lot of Drupal 7 websites for various European organizations. And they can do the same for you.
 

Why is an up-to-date Drupal 7 website so important?

We make sure that your website is supported beyond January 2025 and meets the necessary security requirements. 

An up-to-date platform is a secure platform, and that is an absolute must. The consequences of an unsupported Drupal version? Your website is no longer secure, you no longer enjoy updates, and you risk breaches that can have major consequences. A number of technical problems also arise. For example, modules are no longer supported, causing your website's SEO score to drop.  

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620 years of Drupal experience

Dropsolid has many senior developers who've worked with Drupal 7 for years. Unlike many young developers, they do have the necessary knowledge to keep your website secure and performing.

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Drupal is in our DNA

And that translates into our expertise: hosting, development, takeovers, training, support... In addition, we also have enormous knowledge about security and performance, for example.

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+10.000 Drupal contributions

Ever since our existence, we have focused primarily on Drupal. On this expertise of over 10 years we build together with our team. And that team also builds on each other. More than 50 Drupal experts push each other to the next level every day. 

How do we approach Drupal 7 support?

 

  1. We discuss your case personally and, together, draw up a future vision for your website.
  2. We make an action plan based on your wishes and needs: the Drupal 7 Maintenance Plan.
  3. We execute the action plan with PHP and Drupal 7 updates.

Such an action plan is always a plan per year. Why per year? Every year, Dropsolid evaluates whether to extend D7 support for another year. So we look at it year by year. Will Drupal extend the support? Then, we also offer a new action plan for the coming year.

At the moment, Dropsolid supports Drupal 7 beyond January 2025

In exceptional cases, and if circumstances permit, the decision may be made to continue supporting Drupal 7 until 2027 as an ultimate deadline. Regardless of the support of the Drupal Association, and as long as the underlying technology, such as PHP and Linux versions, remain supported. if the Long Term Support program gets reinstated, we will join the program again.

Several plans are available

Depending on the amount of sites you have and what your needs are. Our offer includes your involvement in the support program, ensuring you receive security advisories, included patches and all necessary information to keep your site up to date. There is support included in case help is needed to apply patches or perform changes from the security advisors. In case you require more than what's included in our Basic, Pro or Enterprise tiers; Dropsolid offers extra support in Consultancy. If you have over 500 sites or require custom code support, we can create a custom action plan that allows you to ensure an optimal safety of your site.

What is a Drupal 7 Maintenance Plan exactly?

1. Drupal Audit

Depending on the chosen program, we start off with a Drupal Audit. This way we make the right estimate of the complexity and cost of further maintenance.

2. Drupal Takeover

A takeover of your website is not always necessary and we make a recommendation based on th audit. It could be beneficial to ensure best practices are used that allow easy and quick roll-out patches.

3. Hosting

Based on the outcome of the Audt (step 1), the current hosting can be used or the website can be moved to the Dropsolid Experience Platform. Our hosting ensures security and flexibility. Our Experience Platform allows for quick and easy application of patches.

4. Patch Application

By default, patches are applied by the client itself. Through Consultancy, Dropsolid can also apply the patches for you.

Is staying on Drupal 7 a long-term solution?

It depends. If you have a large enterprise application that is simply too hard and expensive to migrate, it could make business case sense for getting on the Drupal 7 Extended Support Program. We can calculate this together with you. We can also help you support and even develop on top of it. Unlike many other security firms, we do have Drupal 7 Experts on board. This allows you to benefit from the full range of support, not only Extended Support. And we commit to it because we have hundreds of D7 applications that we need to support.

We also have high profile customers and we even have a reputation in the Drupal community to keep high. So definitely keep in mind a certain cost, and it is likely to get more expensive every hear as it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a Drupal 7 website. In addition to that, Drupal 7 expertise is gradually disappearing from the market because it is no longer actively supported and developers can no longer fully focus on it. However, at Dropsolid you will stay support as we believe D7 is a powerful platform that is worth supporting.

The Drupal 7 Extended Support Plan is also a perfect temporary solution. Whilst thinking your next step and take away migration pressure. Is your new website behind schedule? Lack of budget? Or is your organization undergoing a digital transformation? Dropsolid Drupal 7 Extended Support Program is the perfect solution for you.

Calculate the cost of your Drupal migration

The choice between a limited maintenance cost and a larger investment in an improved digital platform depends on your business case. There are different factors and trade-offs to consider.

Are you curious about the cost of a Drupal 7-migration? We’ve designed a tool that helps you calculate the cost of your migration.

Download our migration calculator  

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I choose to stay on Drupal 7?

You can, and your website will keep working. Just keep in mind that your website will no longer meet security requirements and that Drupal will no longer support your current version. 

If you choose the Drupal 7 EOL Plan at Dropsolid, your D7 website will remain secure for longer than January 2025. 

 

Can I migrate directly from D7 to D11 without switching to D8 first?

Yes, that’s perfectly doable. We recommend you see this migration as an opportunity to rethink your entire website experience. Drupal 11 offers new ways to maintain your website more efficiently – just take Layout Builder and Workspaces as some examples.

Technology is moving faster than ever, and you should avoid taking legacy systems to your new website. Migrating relevant content to your new website is usually the best approach.

Will my current Drupal 7 website continue to work without an update?

Yes, your current website will remain online. However, you will no longer be able to enjoy necessary security updates, which has negative implications.

What does Drupal 7 Long-Term Support mean?

The so-called Extended Support Program or Long-Term Support was started in cooperation with the Drupal Association and the Drupal Security Working Group. This was revised and discontinued again for various reasons. Currently, the Drupal Community still supports D7 until January 2025.

Want to keep your website secure and performing after that, Then our Drupal 7 Extended Support is the suitable solution for you.

Dropsolid is aprt of 1 in 3 global vendors and the only European vendor that is offering Extended Support. We guarantee the best possible spoort for our Drupal 7 clients for as long as possibble.

Can I use custom Drupal 7 modules in Drupal 11?

Unfortunately, this isn’t possible. The underlying architecture of Drupal has evolved and D7 code needs to be ported to be compatible with later Drupal versions. However, your migration provides an opportunity to verify whether the functionality of your custom Drupal 7 code can be achieved with contributed modules for Drupal 11.

Is Dropsolid to be trusted?

  • We have high profile customers in governments, large enterprises and organisations that we have commitments with to keep Drupal 7 supported.
  • We have an enterprise class EOL program with access to patches before release (under NDA), a bounty program with the best ethical hackers and advanced platform level monitoring on the Dropsolid platform for hundreds of Drupal 7 applications. This goes a lot further than just watching the unofficial D7 support site like other vendors do. Dropsolid offers real value and real protection not just on paper.
  • We believe Drupal 7 is a powerful platform that is worth supporting. We are giving commitment to organisation who invested a lot in Drupal 7. We also offer year long contracts and not just monthly contracts. We have skin in the game.
  • We regret the poor official communication around EOL in the last 4 years so we want to be really clear that we will support D7 for years to come. For real. Not from an opportunistic perspective like other security vendors. Dropsolid has from the beginning in 2020 been part of the official EOL program. We have alway believed customers needed an EOL for D7. We know how much was invested in D7.
  • One of our founders was a Drupal 7 developer himself for many years and he really loves the platform. He published many D7 articles on his blog and supported Drupal 7 for many years. He believes D7 EOL is relevant for a lot of customers. Having built complex D7 applications himself, he knows what is a stake.
  • We believe the future is important and we do care about that too. Dropsolid offers a full range of services on D11 and a Drupal 10 based DXP to secure your future but we don't believe supporting D7 is slowing down innovation on Drupal like other influential players in the Drupal ecosystem for whom it seems Drupal 7 has become an inconvenience. We believe we can keep stay true to past commitments while innovating at the same time.
  • We love Drupal 7, we promoted it for years to our customers. The big breaking change when D8 came has hurt a lot of customers because they learned the migration path was not easy, despite a lot of effort from the community. They invested a lot in D7. Unclear EOL communication made things worse. And yes it is true Drupal 7 was eventually supported for 14 years, it has broken trust in Drupal for a lot of customers. We want to acknowledge that truth and we just feel the right thing to do is be empathic with customers who invested a lot in D7 and offer EOL. 

    We want to honor those past commitments while at the same time look ahead and build the future on Drupal. 

    So yes Dropsolid can be trusted. Dropsolid is solid Drupal. Solid Drupal 7.

Can anyone join the program?

No, as this program provides information about vulnerabilities, every potential subscriber is first screened by our compliance team to ensure that bad actors do not get access to this information.

Is custom code included?

Custom code is included starting at the Custom Tier. To allow this, an audit of the site(s) needs to be performed by Dropsolid to determine pricing. For other tiers, custom code is not included. But support can be purchased via Drupal 7 Consultancy.

Can we ask for your help if we have specific Drupal 7 needs?

Yes, we provide additional Drupal 7 Consultancy services exclusively for subscribers to the LTS Program. These consultancy services can be purchased separately. 

How does the included support work?

Support is given for applying patches from the security program to the sites under your care. The support hours are not transferable between months. If more support is needed besides the included hours and offering, this can be purchased via Drupal 7 Consultancy.

Will you eventually release patches to the public domain?

This has not been decided yet. If we would decide to do so, we would release patches with a delay. Keep in mind that if you are not a subscriber, you are also not entitled to purchase Drupal 7 Consultancy.

Your Drupal 7 website is in good hands with Dropsolid