With the Drupal 8 release remains to be unknown (but coming ever closer) it is certainly worth spending a bit of time to ask yourself: What does this mean to my Drupal site and how much time do I have do make a decision?
As of today Drupal 8 is still at the alpha stage, and beta is still being held back by a number of blocker issues. Once they’re resolved we can expect to see beta releases coming out soon after. Regardless, that would still be some time away before we can expect version 8.0.0 to be ready.
With that being said, much of the features and structure of Drupal 8 has stabilized and so it is safe to expect these features to be there when it is released. Much of the change involves adopting a more modern OOP approach and to use more outside resources and standards so that it can simplify the work for themers and developers, while maintaining the look and feel from Drupal 7. (More details here)
A site owner may probably (and rightfully) ask: If the new Drupal does not offer new perks and obvious improvements to my site then what’s the reason for me to care? In essence it is about the implied end-of-life (EOL) for older Drupal versions. Based on this post it has been decided that once a Drupal version enters the long term support stage (LTS), the previous major version will cease to be maintained outside of security fixes and support will altogether stop on one version prior. Which means when Drupal 8 enters LTS Drupal 7 will no longer be supported as it is now, and version 6 will see its EOL, which means security issues found in newer versions will not be fixed on Drupal 6 Therefore the question is not “why are we upgrading” but “when and how are we going to approach upgrading”.
All in all, if you plan to create or migrate your site to Drupal, you can ignore all the above and go with Drupal 7, and worry about upgrading when Drupal 9 comes out. Otherwise, if you own an existing Drupal site:
Drupal 7: It is not yet a pressing issue for you but it still good to plan ahead;
Drupal 6: With the knowledge that it will cease to be maintained when version 8 hits LTS, it’s best to look into an upgrading strategy into version 7 or 8 (when it’s released);
Drupal 5 or lower: What’s holding you back all this time? Your site is likely vulnerable to security issues that would have been avoided if your site is running newer Drupal versions.
You’re welcome to talk to us if you need any professional opinions on upgrading or anything else in general.