In a post regarding the Drupal 9 platform, Dries Buytaert, Drupal founder, and project lead, said “The big deal about Drupal 9 is that it shouldn’t be a big deal”. This statement re-iterated the simplicity in its migration. It also signifies a fundamental shift in the way Drupal wants to become a simpler, non-coder-friendly platform while retaining its best qualities. Let us understand what’s new in Drupal 9 and what are the benefits of upgrading to Drupal 9.
1. Introduction
If you’ve read our previous blog, The Best Ecommerce Platforms: Pros & Cons, we have mentioned Drupal as one of the most exhaustive, robust, secure eCommerce platforms. It is very popular but needs coding skills to put it to the best use. Drupal has been in the news recently for launching Drupal 9. On June 3, Drupal 9 was released, it was regarded as vital progress in the evolution of Drupal. Drupal 9 was not built from scratch but it took the progress made by Drupal 8 into the future.
1.1. Drupal
The popularity of Drupal is unparalleled. Drupal offers inherent automation capabilities that give coders a great advantage over other eCommerce platforms.
On the last count, Drupal 7 forms the backbone of about 730,000+ websites across the globe. Drupal 7 is popular because it is a very stable version and is officially supported by the Drupal team itself. The support was supposed to be withdrawn earlier, but the team extended the support due to the pandemic by another year until November 2022.
1.2. Drupal 9
According to Drupal’s website “Drupal 9 represents the culmination of all of the features developed over the course of Drupal 8, on a leaner, cleaner codebase. This updated technology positions Drupal 9 to continue Drupal 8’s pattern of continuous innovation with significant features released every six months.”
So if you are a Drupal user you will want to migrate to Drupal 9 because the platform itself has become less bulky with optimized code and codebase. Moreover, the developers have made the migration from Drupal 8 to 9 much easier, thanks to their fundamental architecture remaining the same. Also according to the website information “The majority of the top 200 Drupal contributed modules are already compatible with Drupal 9 in preparation for the release”.
A Cleaner codebase will give you smaller programs that are faster to load and more optimized to various platforms. In addition, Drupal’s very well-optimized open source community will also make sure that the programs are secure making the websites inherently strong against known cyber threats. Drupal 9 is also developed keeping in mind the growing customer needs, it is optimized to offer a rich digital experience to the end-users of all kinds.
2. Key Features of Drupal 9
Drupal 8 already has several futuristic features that are cutting edge even today. Many features introduced from its 7th and 8th versions were appreciated, used, and well supported by the community. They have been retained in Drupal 9 and many features were added to make Drupal more user-friendly. Despite the fact that most of these features are focused on making Drupal less dependent on developers, especially for everyday tasks such as content updation. This move made Drupal even more popular for lightweight websites used by small and medium businesses.
A few such specifications include:
2.1. Layout builder
A feature that allows non-coders to develop and design webpages.
2.2. API-first architecture
A feature that enables building applications that are robust, decoupled, and headless.
2.3. Content/Media Library
A tool that stores and manages various website content in one place, also helps in SEO.
2.4. Easy UI for admin
An improvement in Drupal9 that allows easy management of websites in a few simple clicks through intuitive insights.
2.5. Improved default interface
A much-needed improvement in Drupal 9 that will make a beginner’s job easy and low-cost websites more appealing.
2.6. Timely updates
The robust open community wants to strengthen the security of the Drupal 9 platform, by proactively identifying bugs and providing regular and timely updates to fix them.
2.7. Mobile-first
Drupal 9 addresses the changing landscape in the mobile community as more and more users are accessing websites through mobile devices. It takes a mobile-first approach to its designs.
2.8. Multi-language support
Unlike Drupal 7, Drupal 8 had an out-of-the-box feature to support multi-language display, Drupal 9 makes it an integral feature. Again a feature that was added to feed more non-native worldwide customers thanks to the boom of eCommerce.
2.9. Easy integrations
Drupal always was a very good platform that was open for all kinds of integrations. Drupal 9 has taken it a step further making the integration with other applications easy even for novices.
2.10. Non text integrations (voice search, visual search, AR and VR)
These 3rd party integrations need a special mention because of Drupal 9’s focus on these new forms of content and interactions. Powered by the API-first design, the best in business to fully make use of these emerging technologies.
2.11. Faster
Drupal 9 is a cleaner and optimized platform. It will make websites developed on Drupal 9 much faster than those developed on the previous platforms.
3. Drupal Web Development
Vietnam, the emerging destination for technology outsourcing, has several trusted companies that offer Drupal development services. We, Kyanon Digital, are definitely one of the top eCommerce development companies that offer Drupal Development for companies across the world.
Since our inception, we have been passionate and fascinated with the power and flexibility of Drupal. We have evolved our teams, aligned with consumer preferences, and leveraged Drupal’s evolution for it. Drupal allows us to cater and customize and build a website with your business preferences and budget.
4. Choosing a Drupal Development Company
Here are a few criteria every company must look for while choosing a web development partner (using Drupal):
- Certifications, and Skills
- Activity on Drupal Community
- Experience
- Support
- Focus on Drupal
Kyanon Digital is one of the best Drupal development companies based out of Vietnam and Singapore. We offer web development services to build secure, flexible, scalable, and modern applications using the Drupal Platform. Give us a shout-out no matter how big or small your project is if you are either migrating from a legacy Drupal platform to a new one, from anywhere in the world. Our team will follow the Standard Operating Protocols associated with Drupal migration, and ensure a perfect fit of your existing website or application on Drupal 9.
