Drupal 7 to WordPress
migration guide
If your organization is using an older Drupal version, like Drupal 7, you’re most likely planning for an upgrade or migration to a new CMS. While Drupal 10, the current front-runner, may seem like a natural fit to preserve your existing ecosystem, exploring other options could prove more cost-effective and efficient, especially considering potential Drupal to Drupal migration complexities. Let’s delve deeper into the factors to consider when making this crucial decision.
Challenges in migrating from
Drupal 7 to Drupal 10
Migrating a website from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 can offer many advantages, including improved security, performance, and access to new features. However, it’s important to be aware of the challenges involved in this process. Here’s a brief overview:
| Challenge | Description | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| Architectural Shift | Procedural code in Drupal 7 needs to be reworked for the object-oriented framework in Drupal 10. | Potentially requires a complete website rebuild, increasing development resources. |
| Theme Incompatibility | Drupal 7 themes are incompatible with the new Twig-based engine in Drupal 10. | Conversion or complete replacement of themes is necessary. |
| Module Compatibility | Many Drupal 7 modules may not work with newer versions. | Requires finding alternative modules, developing custom solutions, or potentially losing specific functionalities. |
| Data Migration Complexity | Transferring content and user data, especially for large or customized sites, can be challenging. | Careful planning and potentially specialized tools are crucial to avoid data loss or corruption. |
| PHP Version Considerations | While Drupal 7 core is PHP 8 compatible, some modules and themes might not be. | Potential compatibility issues and security risks if not addressed before upgrading. |
| Time & Cost Investment | Migration time and cost vary depending on project complexity. | Can be significant depending on the size and complexity of the website. |
| Expertise Requirement | Successfully migrating requires developers with expertise in Drupal’s latest versions and the migration process. | Finding qualified developers can be challenging and impact costs. |
Considering these challenges, it’s important to weigh the benefits of migrating from Drupal 7 to Drupal 10 against potential complexities. Moreover, explore alternative CMS platforms if simplicity, flexibility, or specific functionalities are your primary concerns.
Talking about alternatives, WordPress is the potential alternative to Drupal due to many benefits. (You can skip to Drupal to WordPress conversion guide in case if you are aware of the benefits)
Considering moving to WordPress?
Benefits of moving to WordPress from Drupal 7
Compared to Drupal, WordPress offers several benefits that may make it a better choice for your CMS needs.
Shorter learning curve
Professionals of diverse technical backgrounds can easily navigate and contribute to overall website management, leading to reduced training costs, faster project turnaround times, and a more smooth content management.
Large ecosystem & community
The WordPress community of developers and contributors provides plenty of documentation, tutorials, forums, and support. Consequently, this makes it easier to solve problems.
Low cost of ownership
WordPress is a more affordable than Drupal in terms of development and maintenance.
Better extensibility
WordPress offers a vast array of plugins that can extend diverse functionalities to your website.
Third party integrations
WordPress is more compatible and integrates with third-party services available as plugins for features like email marketing, analytics, e-commerce, etc.
Requirements analysis & understanding Drupal to WordPress migration
Migrating an enterprise content management system sounds like a complex undertaking. However, a clear understanding of your requirements, plan, and migration strategies can significantly streamline the process. This clarity will empower you to estimate your budget, navigate potential challenges, and measure the migration’s impact.
Beyond these core considerations, several other crucial aspects warrant thorough evaluation during the planning and strategizing phase when moving from Drupal to WordPress. By meticulously considering these factors, you can embark on a smooth and successful migration. We have laid down this section in a FAQ format for better understanding.
How long will the migration process take?
For enterprise sites, the migration process can vary from a few weeks to a few months. The time required for a complete Drupal to WordPress migration depends on various factors:
- Website size: Larger websites with more content, pages, and functionalities will naturally take longer to migrate compared to simpler sites.
- Redesign: If the migration only involves lift and shift, it will be faster. Migrating from Drupal 7 to WordPress offers a chance to revamp your UI/UX, but it extends timelines and requires replicating Drupal’s UX elements in the new WordPress theme. Weigh the pros and cons (current UX effectiveness, desired improvements, resource.
- Module Requirements: Migrating custom modules or finding alternatives for incompatible ones can be time-consuming:
- Data Migration Complexity: The amount and complexity of data (content, user data, etc.) being migrated plays a role. Extensive data cleaning and transformation might be necessary if the data structure differs significantly between platforms.
Which features & modules should we migrate from Drupal to WordPress?
Migrating your CMS offers a valuable opportunity to re-evaluate your website’s features. This includes asking yourself:
- Are all features actively used and essential?
- Are there functionalities you can streamline or even eliminate?
- Can WordPress meet your current and future feature needs?
A crucial step in the Drupal to WordPress data migration involves identifying which features are truly indispensable for your new website. This ensures that, by taking this step, you can enhance efficiency, focus resources, and ultimately, future-proof your CMS. The exhaustive features and modules from Drupal could include the following functionalities. You can check which suits your business needs.
| Features | Drupal | WordPress |
|---|---|---|
| Multisite, Multilingual and Localization |  | |
| SEO and Analytics | | |
| A/B Testing and Personalization | | |
| Decoupled/Headless Architecture | | |
| User Roles & Permissions | | |
| Automation | | |
| Ecommerce | | |
| Drush | | |
| Pathauto | | |
| Revisioning | | |
The above are few of many important features. Map these few features and modules to the corresponding WordPress features. Identify any custom or missing features that you need to create or find.
How integrable is WordPress with third-party services?
You need to identify the third-party integrations from Drupal to be required on WordPress. WordPress offers extensive third-party integrations in comparison to any other CMS platform, including Drupal.
| Third-Party Tools | Examples | Drupal | Migrate to WordPress |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRM | Hubspot, Salesforce, Pipedrive etc. | | |
| CDP | Segment, Piwik Pro etc. | | |
| ERP | SAP, NetSuite, Acumatica etc. | | |
| DAM | Acquia DAM, Bynder, Aprimo etc. | | |
| Analytics | Google Analytics 4, Parse.ly, Matomo etc. | | |
| CDN | CloudFlare, Akamai, Amazon CloudFront etc. | | |
| LDAP/IAM | Azure AD, JumpCloud, Okta etc. | | |
While the provided list offers a starting point, it’s crucial to go beyond simply checking boxes but understanding which functionalities are truly essential, rather than focusing solely on specific features.
Will I have to change my hosting?
No, changing your hosting provider is not mandatory while moving from Drupal to WordPress. You can potentially migrate your website while staying with your current hosting provider, as long as they meet certain requirements:
- Supported PHP version
- Database compatibility
- Hosting resource availability
However, we recommend switching hosting providers during your migration due to some advantages:
- Specialized WordPress Hosting: Many providers like WordPress VIP offer optimized WordPress hosting plans with features like automatic updates, security enhancements, and pre-configured settings specifically catered to WordPress websites.
- Technical Support: These providers often offer technical support teams familiar with WordPress, potentially simplifying troubleshooting during migration or future maintenance.
The hosting infrastructure determines your site’s performance and scalability. When you migrate, opt for a managed hosting service, which is specialized for WordPress. Managed hosting provides several enterprise-grade features such as provisions for scaling-up, security, compliance certifications, encryption, deployment pipeline, backups, and maintenance.
What kind of team will be required?
Before migration, you need to assess the team setup required for your migration. It could be your internal team, if you have developer expertise for Drupal to WordPress migration. If your developer team lacks the necessary expertise, you could hire an expert Enterprise WordPress agency providing WordPress migration service. Additionally, you can also hire external talent (specialized in Drupal to WordPress data migration) for your team through Staff Augmentation
How secure & compliant is WordPress?
You may have doubt if WordPress is more secured than Drupal, which includes security features in-built. WordPress has a larger user base and market share, which makes it a more attractive target for hackers and cyberattacks. But with deploying dedicated security plugins, managed hosting and following best practices, WordPress is well protected and highly secured.
How scalable & future-proof is WordPress?
There’s a common perception with a question asked that WordPress is only good for blogs and small websites. However, this is not true. WordPress is a scalable platform that can handle high traffic and complex functionality for enterprises. It powers some of the most popular and successful websites in the world. Additionally, WordPress is a versatile solution for any purpose, including headless implementations.
Drupal 7 to WordPress migration
This guide provides a detailed roadmap for successfully transitioning your website from Drupal to WordPress. It outlines crucial steps across various stages, from pre-migration planning to post-launch maintenance, thereby ensuring a smooth and successful migration.
By following this guide, you can leverage the advantages of migrating to WordPress without affecting SEO, preserving the valuable content and functionality from your existing Drupal website.
Drupal site audit
Analyze and document –
- Structure: Analyze your Drupal website’s overall organization, including pages, menus, and content hierarchy.
- Content Types: Identify the different types of content used on your site (e.g., posts, pages, products, events).
- Vocabulary: Understand how content is categorized and organized using tags, categories, and custom taxonomies.
- Content Inventory: Create a detailed record of all content, including titles, URLs, and publication dates.
Benefits –
- Efficient mapping: Facilitates mapping Drupal content types and taxonomies to their WordPress equivalents.
- Improved migration accuracy: Ensures a comprehensive overview of your website for complete content migration.
Drupal site backup
Importance –
- Creates a safety net in case of unforeseen issues during migration.
- Allows reverting to the original Drupal site if necessary.
Backup methods –
- Utilize your hosting provider’s backup service.
- Use a Drupal backup module like “Backup and Migrate.”
- Manually export the database and files.
- Remember: Store the backup securely in a separate location.
SEO planning
- Conduct a comprehensive SEO audit on your Drupal site.
- Discard any content and links not required or which is found to be deprecated.
- List your metadata and hierarchy of site architecture.
- Select a dedicated SEO plugin like Yoast SEO or Rank Math for WordPress, which implements all the features existing on your Drupal site.
WordPress setup & development
Tailor WordPress to match your Drupal site’s functionality
Site configuration –
- Choose a single or multisite WordPress installation based on your website’s requirements.
- Set up a staging site for development and testing purposes.
Plugins, blocks & templates –
- For each feature and module on your Drupal site, find WordPress plugins that match their functionalities.
- Then, install and activate those plugins on your new WordPress site.
- Develop custom blocks, block patterns and templates for unique features such as Views existing on your Drupal site
Requisite theme & UX –
- Develop a custom WordPress theme that visually replicates your Drupal site’s design or a renewed design.
- Or, you can select a theme among the thousands available on the WordPress Themes directory, if it fulfills your site design requirements.
- Ensure consistency in user experience (UX) and optimize frontend performance.
User roles –
- Map the user roles from your Drupal site as per access control level to the default user roles available on WordPress.
- If it’s required, you can also register custom roles on WordPress with specific permissions as per defined access control level.
Content mapping –
- Plan how Drupal content types will translate to WordPress post types, pages, custom post types, or other options.
- Consider how taxonomies will be mapped to WordPress categories, tags, or custom taxonomies.
Third-party integrations –
- Identify essential integrations used on your Drupal site.
- Find equivalent WordPress plugins or develop alternative solutions.
Expediting platform migration
Migrate content with minimal disruption.
Content freeze & delta migration –
- Pause content creation and updates on your Drupal site during migration.
- Utilize Delta migration to import content incrementally, minimizing resource consumption and downtime.
Migration plugin & script –
- You can use a plugin purpose built for CMS platform migration.
- You may need to a custom script for complex migrations or specific requirements.
Manual migration –
- Address edge cases of content with manual migration from Drupal to WordPress.
Digital assets migration –
- Migrate all digital assets (images, videos, documents) using the chosen migration method.
- Preserve or insert the metadata for the digital assets, such as Alt text and Title, for SEO and accessibility.
New site deployment
Optimize your new WordPress site for optimal performance and user experience.
URL mapping –
- Implement 301 redirects to map old Drupal URLs to their corresponding new WordPress URLs.
- This preserves search engine ranking and user experience.
SEO configuration –
- Conduct an SEO audit of your new site before launch.
- Set up 301 redirects for maintaining search rankings.
- Update your sitemap and monitor rankings to ensure a smooth SEO transition.
Caching & security –
- Leverage managed hosting features for built-in caching and security features.
- Implement a Content Delivery Network (CDN) for faster content delivery and improved performance.
- Employ a multi-layered security approach to protect your website from vulnerabilities.
Analytics & ads management –
Verify that web analytics and ad tracking codes are correctly migrated and functional on the new WordPress site.
Quality assurance –
- Conduct thorough testing to ensure everything functions as intended on the new site.
- Verify compatibility across different devices and browsers.
Go-live –
- Perform a final review of the staging site before going live.
- Update DNS settings to point your domain to the new WordPress site.
- Deploy your new website to production.
Site monitoring –
- Proactively address any issues after the launch.
- Monitor your website for any performance or functionality problems.
- Address any post-launch issues promptly to maintain a smooth user experience.
User training –
- Provide training to content editors and administrators on managing the new WordPress site.
- This ensures smooth workflow and content management after the migration.
Documentation support –
- Obtain complete documentation for all custom features migrated or newly developed on WordPress.
- Provide comprehensive documentation to your team to ensure knowledge transfer and smooth management of the new website.
Bonus tips!
Communication
Maintain clear communication with stakeholders throughout the migration process.
SEO maintenance
Continuously monitor and optimize your website’s SEO performance after migration.
Security
Regularly update your WordPress core, plugins, and themes to maintain the latest security patches.
Backup & updates
Maintain regular backups of your WordPress site and update WordPress core, plugins, and themes at appropriate intervals.
Use our free checklist
This guide outlines the Drupal to WordPress migration process and the benefits it can bring to your enterprise site. However, as mentioned above, migration requires careful planning, execution, and testing. We follow a comprehensive checklist detailing each step and best practices for a successful migration. Share your details in the form below to get the checklist.
Please note: The Drupal to WordPress migration checklist is an internal company document and will only be shared after evaluation of the form details to ensure its relevance to your specific needs.
