Drupal 7 Extended Support

We here at New Target have been developing in Drupal 7 since January 2011 when it was first released. We understand that moving to Drupal 9, WordPress, or another CMS can take time and treasure and that this decision should be on your terms, not your software’s. We therefore offer multiple options to keep your Drupal 7 website secure while you migrate to Drupal 9 or WordPress.

Drupal 7 Extended Support+

We’ll take over the hosting, maintenance, and security updates of your existing Drupal 7 website so that your website performance and software has all the latest patches and features. With our basic Drupal 7 extended support service, we provide same day security updates for Drupal core and contributed modules. We use state of the art monitoring to stay on top of the latest security vulnerabilities across your entire website software stack, from the application to the database to the operating system.

In addition to security updates, by switching your website hosting to us, you will get many advanced features, (the + in our services). We provide DDOS protection, global content delivery network, free SSL certificates, image optimization, tiered caching, prefetching, malware scans, spam and bad bot protection, and much, much more. Our plus means more.

Backdrop CMS + New Target

Do you love Drupal 7? Do you want to stay with it beyond 2025? We can help you with that. Have you heard of Backdrop CMS? Well, it’s based on D7 and includes an upgrade path from D7 to Backdrop. Some of the attractive features are that it’s faster than D7 thanks to a lighter core, backwards compatibility makes updates a breeze, and it has the flexibility to build and display custom content.

Forking Drupal is an acceptable choice that is typically made because of limitations in the business’ technical expertise and budget. Drupal is becoming more complex because it is being used by larger websites. Drupal is guided by its users and volunteers and it can be taken in the direction of those with the most time and resources. It doesn’t have a constitution that demands that it perpetually caters to any one group and so it can go in directions that don’t necessarily serve your needs.

The complexity demanded by larger sites and those developers who are taking Drupal in that direction leads directly to specialized hosting, specialized developer needs, and with migration costs from version to version, this “free” website you signed on for can quickly become one that smaller businesses and nonprofits really can’t afford. 

The affordability is the driver behind those passionated about Backdrop CMS. They want out-of-box functionality that people need, more responsibility contained within the core as opposed to contributions so as new versions come out, you can upgrade to the new version and the functionality you need is there.

If the architecture is fairly simple then there are more people who can work on it, there is less training needed, and this means a significant cost savings on developers.

The Backdrop team feels strongly that you should always provide an upgrade path and maintain backwards compatibility to lower the learning curve (and costs) between version jumps. 

We can help you make the migration from D7 to Backdrop if you’re not ready for a redesign and migration to a new platform.

Get in touch, and we’ll help you on your terms and meet you where you are in your organization’s website software saga. There is a solution for your particular need and we’ll help you find it.