Finally! Drupal 8 is in 'release candidate' phase! That means (currently) no 'critical' bugs remain which need to be squashed and the release is considered 'stable' Now, should you upgrade your D6 or D7 site? Well, probably not yet.
We say 'probably' because this release means there should be no major issues which would break a site built with D8. (This site is built on D8.) However, there are still very likely to be quite a few issues which will cause functionality problems. D8 is regularly being updated (as are many of the contributed modules) and much real-world testing remains to be done. Such testing will be more widely performed now that the release candidate is available. So, undiscovered issues or new issues arising from specific applications should be uncovered and addressed at a much more rapid rate than the testing which was performed at earlier stages in the Drupal 8 development process.
Drupal 8 is a much-improved platform as compared to Drupal 6 or Drupal 7. It is significantly more user-friendly. IF you have the time and budget and IF you are prepared to fix issues which pop up regularly and/or unexpectedly then go for it. You'll probably love D8 and you'll be ahead of the game. You'll get a leg up on how to use the new platform and you won't need to upgrade for a few years. If your current site is in D6 then you really need to consider upgrading asap. If your site is in D7 then you should consider remaining on that platform for a little while yet, barring any particular reasons for making the upgrade now. In either case, if your budget and timeline are limited at present, then a move to D8 should not be on your radar.
It's risky running a release candidate as a production site (to say nothing of a beta version). You should have rapid access to a capable dev team if that is your plan. If you are thinking a move to Drupal 8 will eliminate the need to allocate a budget and the need to upgrade again for a while then you're half right. While it will eliminate the need to have to upgrade for some time, your budget will probably increase since you'll likely be regularly making adjustments to keep the site up and running properly. If you have a Drupal 6 site, you should be aware support for D6 will be discontinued 90 days after the 'gold' release of D8. Therefore, your D6 site will run the risk of being more vulnerable to security issues. Also, no further functionality will be created for D6 contrib modules. Anything you need in terms of functionality which is not currently available for D6 via contrib will stay that way.
If you have a site in D6 or lower then our best advice would be to upgrade to Drupal 7 now. Drupal 8 will not really be ready for full-on commercial production sites for over a year from now (sometime in 2017 - maybe earlier but to be on the safe side of a limited budget...). Meanwhile, here are some things to look forward to:
The recently released Drupal 8 packs a punch!
- Beautiful, user-friendly interface with in-line editing makes it super easy for quick edits
- Mobile-first
- All built-in themes are responsive
- Multilingual capabilities - now you can translate anything in the system with built-in user interfaces
- Provides a user interface so configuration changes are now super easy to manage
- Support for standard accessibility technologies
- Better markup with HTML5
- More field types
- Easy to use right out of the box
Overall, this version is more focused on the user, making this the easiest, most well-rounded version of Drupal to date. We are excited to use it and be one of the first to have a site on this amazing platform.
For a more in-depth look visit: https://www.drupal.org/drupal-8.0
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