National Parks Traveler: A Pragmatic Migration from Drupal 7 to Backdrop CMS
Executive Summary
National Parks Traveler, a high-traffic nonprofit news site with more than a decade of archived articles, migrated from Drupal 7 to Backdrop CMS upon reaching Drupal 7’s end-of-life.
The migration preserved the site’s established design, improved server performance, streamlined the editorial workflow, and reduced maintenance costs — all within tight budget and timeline constraints.
By choosing Backdrop CMS over Drupal 9/10, the team leveraged existing expertise, avoided unnecessary complexity, and delivered a platform optimized for long-term sustainability.
Project Background
The Challenge
With Drupal 7 support ending, National Parks Traveler needed an upgrade path that would:
- Maintain security and site stability
- Preserve its archive of tens of thousands of articles
- Avoid disrupting its loyal readership
- Fit the budget of a small nonprofit with limited staff resources
The site’s existing design had been recently refreshed in Drupal 7, so a wholesale redesign was unnecessary. The main priority was ensuring a smooth transition without introducing excessive technical or financial overhead, providing a solid base for future improvements and features.
The Decision: Why Backdrop CMS?
Instead of a full rebuild on Drupal 9/10, the team selected Backdrop CMS for four key reasons:
- Team alignment: The development team actively contributes to Backdrop CMS and is deeply familiar with its architecture and community.
- Lower cost: Migration to Backdrop required fewer development hours and promised lower ongoing hosting and maintenance costs than Drupal 9/10.
- Lean architecture: Backdrop’s lightweight core enables faster performance and easier customization.
- Improved editorial experience: Editors familiar with Drupal 7 gained a cleaner, more efficient backend interface without a steep learning curve.
Technical Implementation
Scope
- Migrated tens of thousands of articles spanning more than 10 years
- Preserved the site’s recently updated Drupal 7 design
- Managed a high-traffic infrastructure with minimal downtime
- Minimal custom codebase simplified the migration process
Approach
- The project followed a “launch and iterate” strategy:
- Get the site live quickly to meet security deadlines
- Let editors work in the new system to identify real-world issues
- Make refinements post-launch instead of over-engineering pre-launch
Key Technical Challenge: Panopoly Layouts
In Drupal 7, National Parks Traveler used Panopoly to give editors per-article custom layouts. The challenge: there was no straightforward way to identify which articles used them.
Solution:
- Identify articles with custom layouts
- Evaluate which layouts were essential
- Recreate critical layouts in Backdrop CMS
- Simplify or standardize layouts where possible
- This process reinforced the value of balancing content fidelity with long-term maintainability.
Results and Benefits Performance Gains
- Improved server response times and faster page loads
- Reduced hosting overhead
- Editorial Workflow
- Cleaner administrative interface
- Streamlined content management compared to Drupal 7
Maintenance
- Lower complexity than a Drupal 9/10 build
- Easier ongoing updates and support
- Preserved investment in recent design work
- Maintained SEO and user experience continuity
Lessons Learned Process Lessons
- Identify custom features early to plan migration effort
- Not every custom layout or feature is worth preserving
- Phased, post-launch improvements keep projects on time and budget
Platform Lessons
- Backdrop CMS excels for high-content-volume sites with straightforward functional needs
- Best fit for teams with Drupal experience who want a simpler, faster system
- An effective option when budget or complexity rules out Drupal 9/10
Conclusion
The National Parks Traveler migration demonstrates that Backdrop CMS can be a practical, performance-oriented alternative to a full Drupal 9/10 rebuild. By prioritizing core functionality, leveraging existing design investments, and adopting a launch-and-iterate philosophy, the team delivered a stable, fast, and sustainable platform.
For other content-heavy sites facing Drupal 7 end-of-life, Backdrop offers a streamlined migration path that reduces cost and complexity while improving editorial usability and long-term maintainability.