Drupal 12 or Drupal 11 — upgrade now or wait?

# Summary Drupal 10 reaches end of life on 9 December 2026. Drupal 12 is planned for the week of 7 December 2026. WebPro's recommendation for sites still on Drupal 10: start an upgrade to Drupal 11 now instead of timing everything around Drupal 12's planned release. Upgrading in December risks facing two simultaneous problems — evaluating a new major version while also losing support for the current one.

# Why upgrade to Drupal 11 now Drupal 11 is available for trial upgrades today. Moving to Drupal 11 before Drupal 10 EOL gets the site onto a supported code path and reduces the amount of unknown work left for a later Drupal 12 upgrade. Tasks you perform for Drupal 11 — removing deprecated code, checking dependencies, and testing critical user journeys — prepare the site and make the next major upgrade easier and less risky.

# Why waiting for Drupal 12 is risky A planned release date does not guarantee that every contributed module or integration you rely on will be immediately ready. Attempting both an evaluation of a new major release and an end-of-support migration during the same week leaves little room for discovery or fixes. For many sites that combination leads to rushed launches and broken user journeys.

# Practical checklist: what to do now

• Run dependency and readiness checks for Drupal 11 in staging. WebPro's Drupal 10 end-of-life article covers the checks to start with.
• Do a trial upgrade to Drupal 11 to reveal blockers and integration issues early.
• Identify the site's essential user journeys and create end-to-end tests (forms, payment/booking flows, editor workflows, mobile and keyboard use).
• Rehearse backups and restores in the staging environment so you know rollback procedures work.
• Plan release windows and test data so trial actions do not trigger real notifications or external side effects.

# When Drupal 12 makes sense Drupal 12 is a reasonable target for: new websites planned for 2027, and sites already running a supported Drupal 11 version where maintainers can evaluate the new core in staging. Before scheduling a production move to Drupal 12, confirm module compatibility and hosting requirements. Drupal 12 requires PHP 8.5 — ask your hosting provider whether your actual environment supports that version rather than relying on generic "supports Drupal" claims.

# Example failure to avoid A site with a custom booking form upgrades its core and appears fine on the homepage, but bookings fail because a form integration or dependency broke. The administration screen shows a newer core version, but customers cannot complete purchases or bookings. This example shows why end-to-end testing of critical journeys is essential before any upgrade reaches production.

# Recommended approach Treat two questions separately: (1) get the current site onto a supported Drupal release in time, and (2) choose when to adopt the next major version after compatibility is confirmed. Start with dependency checks and a Drupal 11 trial upgrade now. Use staging prereleases to evaluate Drupal 12 later once modules and hosting are confirmed compatible.

# Next steps for site owners

• Run the public pre-checks and a trial upgrade to Drupal 11.
• Define which user journeys must be tested and who will own those tests.
• Ask hosting about PHP 8.5 availability if you plan to assess Drupal 12.
• If you need help identifying blockers or planning releases, consider a technical review or migration service that will map blockers, tests, and a safe release date.