Worried about the future of your website on Umbraco 7? Fear not - we have the answers you need to know.
If you’re reading this, then you probably already know that Umbraco 7 reaches “end-of-life” in September 2023, having been in a “security-fixes only” state since July 2021. Umbraco 7 was first released in November 2013, so it’s had a good run, with plenty of updates along the way. But it's time to move on.
What does the EOL mean?
Umbraco 7 will stop being supported by the Umbraco HQ team from September 2023, meaning a risk of unresolved bugs, security issues and no new features.
However, this doesn't mean that your website has to be upgraded right away (although there are good reasons to do so, keep reading!) - what you’ve got today will keep running for now. Your Umbraco 7 site won’t stop working, and provided you understand the risks, there’s no requirement to upgrade - but we’d encourage you to be making plans to benefit from everything that newer versions of Umbraco offer.
Start making plans with us now
What are my options?
The gap between Umbraco 7 and later technologies is pretty big, so unfortunately in most cases a conventional upgrade isn’t really possible. In some limited circumstances a migration of content (even a partial one) might be an option.
So in practice, you’re probably looking at a project to re-platform your site - but we encourage you to see this as an opportunity, not a challenge. Chances are, the structure, content and features of your current site don’t perfectly align with your current proposition and needs, let alone your future ones.
We’ve been building award-winning customer experiences with Umbraco for over 10 years, so have plenty of clients who’ve been in the same situation as you. Contact us to chat through the options and opportunities that an upgrade to Umbraco can offer.
Umbraco Awards 2022 shortlisted;
- Best Education Sector Solution for EngineeringUK’s The Big Bang
- Best Certified Partner Solution for Sims Hilditch
- Jury’s Choice Award for EngineeringUK’s The Big Bang
What are the benefits of upgrading from Umbraco 7?
Aside from the certainty of using a supported version again, a fresh project is the perfect time to reconsider improving your customer experience - updating messaging, content and features to suit their needs.
Recent versions of Umbraco are faster, even more friendly for content editors, and provide more great features than ever. Core to these are the composable DXP approach, allowing you to select and integrate ‘best of breed’ products in a seamless way, tailored to you and your customers needs. Umbraco’s modern architecture means that it’s simple to pick the tech stack you want, with Umbraco doing what it’s always done best for you - managing content.
Will the same situation happen again with newer versions?
No; Umbraco HQ now follows a documented release schedule and support lifecycle enabling you to plan for the future.
Whilst every version will ultimately reach an end-of-life, every 2 years the major version is termed a “long term support” (LTS) release, and these remain supported for a total of 3 years.
The current LTS release is version 10, supported until June 2025, by which time the next LTS (version 13) will be mature and the one after that (version 16) released. Versions in-between are only supported for 12 months, so we don’t recommend these for most projects unless you’re prepared to keep them up-to-date with upgrades a couple of times a year.
Will I be able to upgrade easily in the future?
Whilst no-one has a crystal ball, the jump between Umbraco versions in future is expected to be not so significant since the ‘major’ releases are more frequent. How easy any upgrade will be depends on the changes included and whether your site is affected by them. What we do know is that upgrading from Umbraco 7 to newer versions is hard because of the significant technology changes (including a move to a major new .NET version), which are not expected to be repeated in future.
Provided you plan to upgrade releases along the way, we’re expecting that your journey with Umbraco can continue happily for many years to come.
Should I consider another CMS or DXP platform?
Any rebuild is a natural time to consider whether your platform is serving your needs, but chances are Umbraco is still a great fit for you. It’s a powerful platform, and with improvements it’s made over the last couple of years, is positioned perfectly to take on everything you need in a CMS - a modern architecture, enterprise features and supporting a composable DXP approach to grow with you.
And don’t forget, your content editors will feel right at home in the latest version of Umbraco - everything they’re used to is still there, just even better and more friendly than it’s ever been.
What do I do next?
Firstly, don’t panic - we’re here to help. We’ve been building award-winning customer experiences with Umbraco for over 10 years, so have plenty of clients who’ve been in the same situation as you. Contact us to chat through the options and opportunities that an upgrade to Umbraco can offer.