EPiServer 7.x vs EPiServer 8

I was tasked to find out whether our current active license for CMS 7 will still work with EPiServer 8. So I did some research and thought of sharing it here as well.

Summary Version:

Good news - Our 7.x license will continue to work for EPiServer 8.0
Current EPiServer version available in NuGet is 8.3.0.
EPiServer 8 has breaking changes but mostly needing just code recompilation

Long Version:

Here's the forum that confirms our active subscription will continue to work for this new major version.

If the customer has an active subscription the license that has been used for 7.x will continue to work. When it comes to how certifications are handled for new major versions we will soon give you an update on that. But, rest assured, your EPiServer 7 certification will continue to be valid.

EPiServer has started a continuous release process since about a year ago. Checking their last releases, here's what is recent...

Updating to CMS 8 is no different from updating to the feature updates delivered via NuGet. They have however, named it to a major version and this is because it has some breaking changes. List of breaking changes here: http://world.episerver.com/documentation/Items/Upgrading/EPiServer-CMS/8/Breaking-changes/

Some of the new features:

Multi-publish and preview - there's a new concept called 'Projects' in the Editor
Performance Improvements
Updated browser support - IE9 is no longer supported!
Support for canonical URLs
Better ways to organize content types and properties
Improved control to ensure design consistency