Yet another "Should I upgrade my Umbraco site" article

There are two types of Umbraco website owners:

The first is the “fire and forget” one. They created their website a long time ago, and they are happy to see it continue running, never worrying about updates or upgrades. It’s probably on Umbraco version 8 or 7 (or even lower), hosted somewhere affordable, and that’s the end of the story. 

The second is the kind of owner that always wants their website to be up to date. If it’s on an earlier version, they’ll plan an upgrade. If minor updates are needed, they’ll always be happy to install them. (Or they’ll be hosting it on Umbraco Cloud, where those are applied automatically). They see their website as a growing investment, and they will always try to have it as current as possible. Not only that, but they’re actively seeking ways to improve it, be it functionality, design, SEO, or anything else. 

From a financial standpoint, one would assume that there’s nothing wrong with the “fire and forget” approach. After all, some types of websites, especially ones with content and structure that seldom changes, wouldn’t really benefit from updates and upgrades that would be costing a load of money, right?

Wrong.

While this approach might seem cost-effective initially, it can lead to a financial nightmare down the line. Let’s see why. 

Security

What should be highlighted here is that, even when a website seems like it doesn’t need any maintenance, there’s always the chance that a significant security advisory might come up, revealing the possibility that the site will be in danger, either immediately or in the near future. An update might be immediately necessary to minimize the risk.

Moreover, Umbraco v8 and earlier versions are based on .NET Framework, which, depending on version, is now either retired or in its “support only” phase. Using legacy, unsupported frameworks can open a whole world of exploits and vulnerabilities for websites. 

One would say “but Umbraco is not as popular as other platforms, so this narrows the risks a bit”. Well, .NET Framework, on which v8 and previous versions have been built on, is VERY popular. And even if Umbraco itself does not have any serious vulnerabilities, the framework itself has - or will have, as hackers tend to love legacy software platforms. This risk increases with time.

Outdated functionality

What if there IS a need to update functionality on an old Umbraco website? There was this client that had a v6 website running happily for years and years, but their content grew so much that their ultra-legacy XSLT Search plugin simply wouldn’t cut it - they needed something faster, and something that would support more search criteria. Finding a developer to deal with XSLT stuff in the 2020s would not only be a nearly impossible task, it would also mean throwing a lot of money out the window. 

Outdated functionality means that if you want new stuff, you’re either going to pay a very high price or you’ll be forced to upgrade. And good luck upgrading from such old versions.

That specific client ended up paying for a full rebuild. The cost was, essentially, much more that it would have cost them to gradually upgrade their website to newer versions and functionalities. What’s more important here is that eventually they didn’t avoid paying that cost. 

Performance

This is an important feature that’s often overlooked. Upgrading your Umbraco website also means applying all those performance fixes that your website can benefit from even if nothing else changes.

Back-to-back upgrades 

What’s more difficult, upgrading a v7 site to v13, or upgrading a v10 site to v13?

Rhetorical question. A v7 site needs to first be upgraded to v8, then be upgraded to v10, and, if all goes well, be upgraded to v13. And don’t forget that there also are breaking changes at least in v7.6 and v8.2. Moreover, v8 to v10 is not a simple upgrade, since the underlying technology changes from .NET Framework to Net Core. 

Although you won’t avoid the necessary steps if you want to keep up with upgrades, gradually investing in an upgrade strategy could prove greatly more cost effective than having to do it all in one go, plus you get the security, performance, and functionality benefits coming with each upgrade in their own time.

Conclusion

Keeping your Umbraco website running on legacy technologies without applying any updates and without upgrading it might seem like the best option in order to save some money, but in reality it’ll eventually backfire and you’ll have to pay a huge amount of money to bring everything up to speed when it does - or just throw the whole thing into the trash can and redo it, which can prove even more expensive in some cases.

The best strategy is to gradually invest in your website, updating it frequently, and upgrading it in a reasonable amount of time after a new version is released. It will still cost money, but it’ll be money well spent since you’ll be ending up with an up to date setup ready to host changes and enhancements with minimal cost.