Drupal 7 reached end of life on 5 January 2025. Nearly two years on, many UK charities, membership bodies and small businesses are still running it, often with CiviCRM holding years of supporter, donation and membership data.
If that’s you, the site probably still works. The problem is what you can’t see: no official security fixes, growing compatibility problems with modern PHP and hosting, and a shrinking pool of people willing to support it. This guide sets out your realistic options and what drives the cost of each, so you can make a plan rather than wait for something to break.
What “end of life” actually means
Since January 2025 the Drupal Security Team no longer reviews or fixes Drupal 7 core or its modules. When a new vulnerability is found, there is no official patch. Hosting providers are also moving to newer PHP versions, which older Drupal 7 modules increasingly don’t support.
For organisations handling personal data, this matters beyond IT. Under UK GDPR you are expected to keep personal data secure with appropriate technical measures, and knowingly running unsupported software makes that harder to show.
Option 1: Upgrade to Drupal 11
This keeps you on Drupal, with a modern, supported platform and CiviCRM continuing alongside it. It is a good fit if your site relies on Drupal’s strengths: complex content, multiple user roles, multilingual content or detailed access control.
One important point on timing: Drupal 10 itself reaches end of life on 9 December 2026. If you’re moving from Drupal 7 now, go straight to Drupal 11 rather than stopping at Drupal 10.
Moving from Drupal 7 is a migration rather than a simple upgrade. Your content, users and configuration are moved into a newly built site, and custom modules and themes need rebuilding. The main cost drivers are:
- The number of content types, views and custom features
- Custom modules that have no modern equivalent
- Design: rebuilding your current theme or taking the chance to refresh it
- How CiviCRM is integrated, for example webforms, membership pages and payment processors
Option 2: Move to WordPress with CiviCRM
CiviCRM runs on WordPress as well as Drupal, so you can keep your CRM and all its data while moving the website to WordPress. Many small and medium charities find WordPress easier for staff to edit day to day, and the wider WordPress market makes future support easier to find.
This option suits organisations whose website is mainly pages, news and events, with CiviCRM handling donations, memberships and bookings. The CiviCRM database moves across intact, and the website content is migrated into WordPress.
Option 3: Move to Backdrop CMS
Backdrop is a community-maintained fork of Drupal 7, designed to make the move from Drupal 7 as small as possible. CiviCRM supports Backdrop. It can be the quickest and cheapest route for a simple site that needs to stay close to how it works today. The trade-off is a smaller community and fewer ready-made modules than Drupal 11 or WordPress, so it’s worth checking that the features you rely on are available.
Option 4: Paid extended support (a stopgap)
Some companies offer commercial security support for Drupal 7, such as Tag1’s D7ES and HeroDevs. These services provide security patches after official support ended. Tag1, for example, publishes plans starting at around $150 per site per month for patches only, with hands-on support costing considerably more.
Extended support can be sensible for a few months while you plan and budget a migration. It is rarely a good long-term answer: you keep paying, the platform still ages, and PHP and hosting compatibility problems don’t go away.
Comparing the options
| Option | Best for | Effort | Ongoing position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drupal 11 | Complex sites that rely on Drupal features | Higher | Modern, long-term platform |
| WordPress + CiviCRM | Content-led sites where staff want easy editing | Medium | Large ecosystem, easy to support |
| Backdrop | Simple sites that need the smallest change | Lower | Smaller community |
| Extended support | Buying time while you plan | Low now | Costs continue, risks remain |
What affects the cost
Every migration is different, but the same factors decide the price:
- Size and complexity: the number of pages, content types and custom features
- CiviCRM integration: webforms, payment processors such as Stripe or GoCardless, Gift Aid and membership workflows
- Design: keeping the current look or refreshing it
- Data quality: how much tidying is needed before the move
- Hosting: whether the move also includes new, supported hosting
Smaller, simpler sites can move in as little as one to two weeks. Larger or heavily customised sites take longer, and a proper review up front avoids surprises later.
How to plan your move
- List what the site does, not just what it looks like: forms, payments, member areas, integrations
- Check what’s actually used: most older sites carry features nobody needs any more
- Decide where you’re heading (Drupal 11, WordPress or Backdrop) based on how you’ll use the site for the next five years
- Get a fixed-price quote so you can budget properly, and phase the work if needed
- Plan the switchover for a quiet period, with payments and mailings tested before go-live
Get a free Drupal 7 migration review
We’re former CiviCRM core developers and have moved many Drupal 7 and CiviCRM sites to supported platforms. Our Drupal 7 migration page explains how we work, and our free migration review gives you your options, the risks we see and a fixed-price quote, with no obligation.