The fifth and final feature release of Drupal 9 brings a stable CKEditor 5 module, a command line theme generator and helps prepare for your update to Drupal 10. Bugfixes will be provided for Drupal 9.5 until June 2023 and security fixes will be provided until November 2023.
What’s new in Drupal 9.5.0?
CKEditor 5 support is now stable
Drupal 9.5.0 is the only feature release of Drupal that includes both a stable CKEditor 4 integration (labeled as the "CKEditor" module) and stable CKEditor 5 integration (exposed as a separate "CKEditor 5" module). CKEditor 4 has been removed from Drupal 10 and moved to a contributed project. The support overlap in Drupal 9.5.0 allows users to move to CKEditor 5 ahead of their Drupal 10 upgrade. (Sites may also install the CKEditor contributed project before upgrading to Drupal 10, but should take note that its security support will still likely end in November 2023.)
Starterkit theme and theme generator are stable
The Starterkit theme is used as a basis to generate new standalone themes with the theme generator command line tool, rather than being extended at runtime like the Classy core base theme. Currently, the markup provided by the Starterkit theme is the same as Classy's, but its markup will be improved in future minor releases (whereas Classy's can't).
Several themes and modules are deprecated
Drupal 9.5 deprecates numerous themes and modules that will no longer be a part of Drupal 10 core. Altogether the Bartik, Seven, Classy, and Stable themes have been deprecated, and the Aggregator, CKEditor (4), Color, HAL, Quick Edit, and RDF modules are all deprecated. (Some of these were initially deprecated in 9.4.)
It is safe to use the Drupal 9 core versions of these modules and themes for as long as a site is on Drupal 9. Before upgrading to Drupal 10, review the recommendations for deprecated modules and themes. Determine whether you actually need these modules or themes, or whether you can replace them with other solutions. Drupal 10 compatible versions are available as contributed projects. Drupal's Extend list, Appearance page, and Status report pages will all highlight these extensions if they are used. Upgrade Status will also notify you if you are using any deprecated extensions and helps to make a choice about whether you need them going forward.
What does this release mean for me?
Drupal 9 site owners
Drupal 9 will reach end-of-life alongside two of its key components (Symfony 4 and CKEditor 4 on November 1, 2023. (There is a small chance that a final security release of Drupal 9 could be issued between November 1 and November 30, 2023 if one of these dependencies chooses to do so as well.)
Upgrades to Drupal 10 are supported from Drupal 9.4 and 9.5. However, Drupal 9.4 will no longer receive normal bugfixes. For continued bugfix support, Drupal 9 users should update to Drupal 9.5 now.
Drupal 9.4 and 9.5 will both receive security fixes until the release of 10.1 on June 21, 2023. After that date, Drupal 9.5 will be the only Drupal 9 version to receive security fixes until the November 2023 end-of-life.
Drupal 8 site owners
Drupal 8 is end of life as of November 17, 2021. There is no direct upgrade path to Drupal 10 from Drupal 8, so you will need to first upgrade from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9. There are disclosed security issues with Drupal core that are not fixed in any Drupal 8 version, so if you have not yet upgraded to Drupal 9, do so as soon as possible.
Drupal 7 site owners
Drupal 7 support was extended until November 1, 2023, and it will continue to receive bug and security fixes throughout this time. The migration path for Drupal 7 sites to Drupal 10 is stable. Choose which Drupal major version to update to based on your project timeline. Read more about the migration to Drupal 10.
Translation, module, and theme contributors
Drupal 9.5.0 includes backward-compatible API additions for developers as well as new features.
Since minor releases are backward-compatible, modules, themes, and translations that supported Drupal 9.4.x and earlier will be compatible with 9.5.x as well. However, the new version does include some changes to strings, user interfaces, internal APIs and API deprecations. This means that some small updates may be required for your translations, modules and themes. Read the 9.5.0 release notes for a full list of changes that may affect your modules and themes.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to Drupal 9.5.0!