Setting a clear deadline for sites to use Migrate Drupal in core may help some sites schedule the work without delay.The decision to remove the Migrate Drupal module is driven by several factors:
After 2028, it will still be possible to migrate to Drupal 11 in a development environment, then update to Drupal 12 (or beyond) prior to launching a site.
Decreasing need for Migrate Drupal
Drupal 6 and Drupal 7 sites should complete migrations to Drupal 11 by mid 2028.
- The percentage of Drupal sites using Drupal 6 or 7 continues to decline.
- This means that legacy Drupal sites will not be able to migrate directly to Drupal 12 and later. Legacy sites should migrate to Drupal 11 and then upgrade to Drupal 12.
- This was decided in [Policy] Migrate Drupal and Migrate Drupal UI after Drupal 7 EOL and also discussed in Future of migrate in core in a post Drupal 7 world.
- The Migrate Drupal module, which is required for migrating Drupal 6 and 7 sites, will be removed from Drupal core in the next major release, Drupal 12. Also removed is the Migrate Drupal UI module, which provides a basic user interface for running a migration. Both of these modules will not be moved to a contributed project, as is often done for removed extensions.
- Following from the above, Migrate Drupal will not become a contributed project
Migrate Drupal will not become a contributed project
Migrate Drupal is coupled to many core extensions and it is technically difficult to move all the code to a single module. Moving the code to a single module is a required step in moving a core extension to a contributed project. That task would require a fair amount of contributor and committer time. Instead, we prefer to encourage that time and effort is spent on improving the Migrate API itself.
Sites can migrate to a supported release of Drupal up to 3 years after the end of life for Drupal 7 and 12 years after the end of life for Drupal 6. This is because Drupal 11 will be supported until mid to late 2028.
Recommendation
A strategic track for Drupal is modernization and we want all Drupal sites to enjoy the benefits of Drupal 11 and beyond.
