Should I Upgrade From Drupal 5 to Drupal 6?

The differences between Drupal 5 and Drupal 6 are substantial in a variety of "categories"; performance, security, features, usability, development, etc. (Read more on Drupal.org). Not all of these improvements of Drupal 6 are necessarily essential for every website, however, the potential benefits are myriad. To be fair in answering the question, it could be said that many of the improvements are "behind the scenes" and wouldn't necessarily be noticeable on every website. Also, some of the improvements of Drupal 6 are probably better realized the more high-traffic a site becomes.

This short post is primarily geared towards Drupal website owners who are not doing the development themselves. That is, the question is asked from the perspective of whether a Drupal 5.x website owner should spend the money to pay a developer to upgrade their site to Drupal 6.

In comparison to upgrading from one 5.x version to another (or 6.x version to another), upgrading an existing website from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 is much more extensive. And for some sites, depending on the amount of content, modules used, and a variety of other factors, "much more" extensive might become "extremely" extensive. Custom-designed modules or the lack of availability of a community-contributed module can also add substantially to the workload - or even make it problematic to upgrade.

Where feasible, upgrading to Drupal 6 is likely to be worthwhile and probably very beneficial. But that is a choice that each website owner has to make depending upon the balance between cost and benefit in his or her specific case.

In addition to the many benefits of Drupal 6, there is something else to keep in mind. Once Drupal 7 is released, the benefits of upgrading to Drupal 6 increase. Only two versions of Drupal are maintained at any given time. When Drupal 6 was released, Drupal 4 was no longer officially supported. When Drupal 7 is released, Drupal 5 would no longer be officially supported (See Reference). Some module developers may still support the Drupal 5 versions of their modules, but in time that will be less and less the case. For the most part, people with Drupal 4.x websites tend to be "out of luck" in many ways.

There is no official release date for Drupal 7, although I think the target date is still sometime in the fourth quarter of 2009. A code freeze for Drupal 7 is scheduled for the first of September. That means from September onward, work on Drupal 7 will be focused on fixing bugs before an official release and not the adding or consideration of new code and features. The release of Drupal 7 will come as bugs from code prior to September is fixed and tested.

So as to the question of whether a Drupal 5.x website owner should upgrade to Drupal 6, if it's within your budget to do so and it's feasible, then, yes, you should go for it! If you are planning for more traffic on your website, new features, or development of the site in general, then you have more reason to upgrade. But do keep in mind that your developer will likely charge more to a Drupal 5 to Drupal 6 upgrade than upgrading within one version series. it's make sense because it's a "whole different ball game". In fact, part of the process of upgrading your Drupal 5 website to Drupal 6 will first involve upgrading to the latest release of Drupal 5. And it's after that that the "real work" begins.