Is Drupal 8 stable enough for Production?
With Drupal 8 already steaming ahead and quickly leaving its predecessor behind, when should you be thinking of making the switch? Is it ready for you now, or are there some important features missing before you can safely adopt Drupal 8?
TLDR; Yes! It’s been 2 years. Now is the time to take that seemingly large leap to Drupal 8 and Full Bundle is here to help if you need it.
Drupal 8 Core
Drupal 8’s first official stable release v8.0 was almost two years ago. With many fixes, features and improvements made since then, beta version 8.4 has already been made ready for testing. Surely this is a good sign for all those thinking of making the move?
Truthfully Drupal 8 already had a great head start to becoming a stable platform. Drupal 8’s core is developed it using Symfony2 which was created way back in 2011 and has had plenty of time to become its well respected PHP Framework. A solid base and a strong open-source community has made Drupal 8 a great success in terms of latest development and coding standards but does that mean it’s ready to bet your business on it?
24 Open bug reports on Drupal 8 could seem like a lot to any of you running high traffic sites and it might feel like a risky strategy to start adopting it, but if you compare that to Drupal 7’s current 27 critical bug reports that might just put your mind at rest. Drupal is an evolving open-source CMS platform and anyone adopting it would likely expect that.
Contributed Modules
The next biggest concern for Drupal 8 is if the popular modules you rely on everyday with your current site will be available and ready to use. Lots of the ‘must-have’ modules, most notably Views, have lovingly been added into Drupal 8 Core which is great, but still, what’s missing? From our research, not much any longer. The most used Drupal 7 modules all have Drupal 8 releases, some of which however are still in development. Libraries, Webform and Rules might be difficult to do without, so be sure you're happy updating them regularly for now.
Drupal Commerce has recently published its second Release Candidate (August 2017) so if you’re hoping to use this on your website you might just need to wait a little longer for a truly stable ecommerce platform.
Here’s a list of the most used modules and their current state in Drupal 8:
| Module | Latest Release | Open Bug Reports (ATOW) |
|---|---|---|
| Views | In Core | 0 Critical / 52 Major / 473 Normal / 17 Minor |
| Ctools | 3.0 | 0 Critical / 5 Major / 33 Normal / 1 Minor |
| Token | 1.0 | 1 Critical / 3 Major / 25 Normal / 2 Minor |
| Libraries | 3.x - Dev | 0 Critical / 0 Major / 1 Normal / 0 Minor |
| Pathauto | 1.0 | 0 Critical / 5 Major / 31 Normal / 0 Minor |
| Entity | 1.x - Alpha 4 | 0 Critical / 4 Major / 4 Normal / 0 Minor |
| Admin Toolbar | 1.19 | 1 Critical / 0 Major / 15 Normal / 0 Minor |
| Webform | 5.0 - Beta 16 | 2 Critical / 6 Major / 17 Normal / 1 Minor |
| Date | In Core | 0 Critical / 3 Major / 27 Normal / 3 Minor |
| IMCE | 1.6 | 0 Critical / 0 Major / 4 Normal / 1 Minor |
| Google Analytics | 2.1 | 0 Critical / 1 Major / 3 Normal / 0 Minor |
| Backup Migrate | 4.0 - Alpha 2 | 0 Critical / 2 Major / 9 Normal / 0 Minor |
| Rules | 3.0 - Alpha 3 | 8 Critical / 20 Major / 39 Normal / 0 Minor |
| Drupal Commerce | 2.0 - Release Candidate 2 | 1 Critical / 15 Major / 110 Normal / 7 Minor |
Security
Security should always be on top of people’s lists when choosing their development platforms, especially when using open-source tech and there being an ever growing number of high-profile ransomware attacks. Drupal is always on top of it. Regular security updates for both Drupal Core and contributed modules help keep those hackers at bay. All that is required from you is to keep your site up-to-date. At Full Bundle, we sign-up to their security mailing list and follow the twitter feed to stay informed of upcoming risks and updates.
Documentation
With the big move to an Object Orientated Programming approach, having comprehensive documentation for programmers and adopters is a must. Drupal has always had a good history of documentation and this time it’s no different. You can find a long list of tutorials, guides and community support right on the Drupal Website.
Big Name Adopters
So far the reported use of Drupal 8 has been somewhat of a slow increase with only around 180k installs, yet there are already big names taking the Drupal 8 leap. The websites below are just some of them:
Conclusion
There has been a lot of discussion about Drupal 8’s OOP approach and complex development ideas that could be deterring Drupal 6/7 users from making the change. We at Full Bundle think it’s worth it. OOP is nothing new and it allows us to develop secure, scalable platforms for all types of industries. Full Bundle has been running on Drupal 8 for nearly 2 years. Being earlier adopters had its problems but now, with regular updates and most major module migrations completed there seems to be many reasons why Drupal 8 could be the platform for you.
If you are thinking it's time to take the leap and want an extra hand, get in touch, we’d love to help.