Drupal 9 End of Life: What Utility Organizations Need to Do Now

Drupal 9 support ended in November 2023. If your utility site still runs on Drupal 9, it no longer gets security fixes. Drupal 10 support ends December 9, 2026. You need two steps to reach a supported version. Four moves show you the size of the job.

Upgrading from Drupal 9 to Drupal 11 is not a migration. Drupal 9 and 10 share the same architecture, so you update your codebase without rebuilding or mapping content. The move from Drupal 10 to 11 works the same way.

What Drupal 9 end of life means for your site

Your site still runs, but nobody is watching for security issues. Drupal 9 no longer gets security fixes. The longer you stay on an unsupported version, the more your bill pay, outage reporting, and account access depend on software nobody is patching.

Move 1: Confirm exactly where you are

First, check both your Drupal core and PHP versions, and ask your hosting provider which PHP versions it supports. Make sure your site is updated to at least Drupal 9.5 before you begin. If you are on 9.3 or earlier, upgrade to at least 9.4.4. Since Drupal 10 requires PHP 8.1 or later, update your hosting if your PHP version is older. Drupal 11 needs PHP 8.3 or newer, so make sure your hosting environment supports both upgrades.

Move 2: Scan and sort your modules

The Upgrade Status module scans a site for compatibility issues and helps plan the work. It's helpful, but not perfect, so check modules by hand too. Sort what you find into three groups:

• Contributed modules that already have a Drupal 10 compatible release
• Contributed modules that need an update, a patch, or a replacement
• Custom modules and themes that use deprecated code

Drupal 10 also removed several core modules, including Aggregator, Color, HAL, Quick Edit, and RDF, and some are available as contributed modules. Check whether your site uses any of them.

If a module release supports both Drupal 9 and 10, prepare for Drupal 10 while your site is still live on Drupal 9. If a contributed module has no compatible release, use a patch from the issue queue, ask the maintainers for help, or find a replacement. Drupal Rector automates part of updating custom code. Take this chance to ask if you still need every module.

Move 3: List what your site connects to

Utility sites often connect to a customer information system (CIS), an outage management system (OMS), and a payment processor. A connection that relies on a custom or contributed module moves with that module, so you need to test each one after every step. Write down each connection, how it authenticates, and which module it depends on. Our article on CIS, OMS, and payment integrations covers what to record for each.

If your site takes payments, ask your payment provider and your IT team how running unsupported software affects your compliance obligations.

Move 4: Plan both steps as one project

You cannot skip a major version. A Drupal 9 site moves to Drupal 10 first. Drupal 10 support ends December 9, 2026, so stopping there leaves you unsupported again after that date. Before the second step, your site must run Drupal 10.3.0 or later. Drupal 12 removes upgrades from before Drupal 11.3.0, so plan to land on Drupal 11.3 or later.

Scope, budget, and schedule both steps at once. Our Drupal 9 to Drupal 11 article walks through each step in detail.

What you have after four moves

Now you have your versions, your module list, your connections, and your timing. These give you what you need for a scope and budget to take to leadership, and they speed up an audit. Share the list with your hosting provider, your payment provider, and any vendor behind a connection. Most utility communications teams are small, so a written inventory saves your team from rebuilding the picture every time a vendor or agency asks.

How Inclind approaches an upgrade

Our ICBM method starts with Investigate. We audit your site and build a project plan and technical strategy that sets the sequence of steps. Create turns that plan into design and a technical spec. In Build, we use version control and a CI/CD pipeline, and we run quality assurance and multiple rounds of user acceptance testing before launch. In Measure, we deliver the training and documentation your team needs to run the site.

After launch, every Inclind support package includes monthly application updates. Essential automates them. Professional and Enterprise include managed updates, so routine updates stay current.

Inclind has built and maintained Drupal sites for utilities for over a decade. Delaware Electric Cooperative has been a partner for that time, across four website evolutions and ongoing support for the Beat the Peak app.

Start with a technical audit

If your utility site runs Drupal 9, start with an audit. Contact Inclind to schedule a technical audit of your Drupal environment. You'll get a documented view of your site before you commit to anything.