The best things (benefits) about Drupal 8 (D8) over Drupal 7 (D7)

Read the Agile Guide to Getting out of Drupal 7

We asked some of our Acquia Certified Drupal Developers what they think the best things about Drupal 8 over Drupal 7 and here are their responses:

Christian:

1. Popular contrib modules are now in Drupal 8 core
2. Open architecture that allows greater flexibility and integration
3. Faster templating engine thanks to Twig and improved security

Luna:

1. OOPHP 
2. Everything is an entity and can be edited as such
3. Lots of contrib features now built in. (Like views)

Lucas:

1. Configuration can be now easily shared across different environments
2. D8 uses Symfony as a base framework and follows Symfony updates
3. D8 is built to support REST APIs natively

Felipe:

1. Symfony components makes the platform more open
2. Performance with a better DB design
3. Larger support community

Flynn:

1. Releases cycles have got shorter and because it now uses Semantic Versioning it will be easier for users to identify the kind of release is.
2. Drupal 8 is built using Symfony components, which are decoupled PHP libraries to focus on good standards and security, so this allows Drupal 8 to be aligned with the current industry standards while it benefits the PHP community supporting these components.
3. The Views module (one of the most used modules in D7) is part of Drupal 8’s core and ready to be used out-of-the-box.

Daniel:

1. Improved code quality
2. Improved performance
3. Improved templating