Versioning Scheme
Laravel and its other first-party packages follow Semantic Versioning. Major framework releases are released every year (~Q1), while minor and patch releases may be released as often as every week. Minor and patch releases should never contain breaking changes.
When referencing the Laravel framework or its components
from your application or package, you should always use
a version constraint such as ^11.0
, since
major releases of Laravel do include breaking changes.
However, we strive to always ensure you may update to a
new major release in one day or less.
Named Arguments
Named arguments are not covered by Laravel's backwards compatibility guidelines. We may choose to rename function arguments when necessary in order to improve the Laravel codebase. Therefore, using named arguments when calling Laravel methods should be done cautiously and with the understanding that the parameter names may change in the future.
Support Policy
For all Laravel releases, bug fixes are provided for 18 months and security fixes are provided for 2 years. For all additional libraries, including Lumen, only the latest major release receives bug fixes. In addition, please review the database versions supported by Laravel.
Version | PHP (*) | Release | Bug Fixes Until | Security Fixes Until |
---|---|---|---|---|
9 | 8.0 - 8.2 | February 8th, 2022 | August 8th, 2023 | February 6th, 2024 |
10 | 8.1 - 8.3 | February 14th, 2023 | August 6th, 2024 | February 4th, 2025 |
11 | 8.2 - 8.3 | March 12th, 2024 | September 3rd, 2025 | March 12th, 2026 |
12 | 8.2 - 8.3 | Q1 2025 | Q3, 2026 | Q1, 2027 |
(*) Supported PHP versions
Laravel 11
Laravel 11 continues the improvements made in Laravel 10.x by introducing a streamlined application structure, per-second rate limiting, health routing, graceful encryption key rotation, queue testing improvements, Resend mail transport, Prompt validator integration, new Artisan commands, and more. In addition, Laravel Reverb, a first-party, scalable WebSocket server has been introduced to provide robust real-time capabilities to your applications.
PHP 8.2
Laravel 11.x requires a minimum PHP version of 8.2.
Streamlined Application Structure
Laravel's streamlined application structure was developed by Taylor Otwell and Nuno Maduro.
Laravel 11 introduces a streamlined application structure for new Laravel applications, without requiring any changes to existing applications. The new application structure is intended to provide a leaner, more modern experience, while retaining many of the concepts that Laravel developers are already familiar with. Below we will discuss the highlights of Laravel's new application structure.
The Application Bootstrap File
The bootstrap/app.php
file has been
revitalized as a code-first application configuration
file. From this file, you may now customize your
application's routing, middleware, service providers,
exception handling, and more. This file unifies a
variety of high-level application behavior settings that
were previously scattered throughout your application's
file structure:
return Application::configure(basePath: dirname(__DIR__))
->withRouting(
web: __DIR__.'/../routes/web.php',
commands: __DIR__.'/../routes/console.php',
health: '/up',
)
->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {
//
})
->withExceptions(function (Exceptions $exceptions) {
//
})->create();
Service Providers
Instead of the default Laravel application structure
containing five service providers, Laravel 11 only
includes a single AppServiceProvider
. The
functionality of the previous service providers has been
incorporated into the bootstrap/app.php
, is
handled automatically by the framework, or may be placed
in your application's
AppServiceProvider
.
For example, event discovery is now enabled by default,
largely eliminating the need for manual registration of
events and their listeners. However, if you do need to
manually register events, you may simply do so in the
AppServiceProvider
. Similarly, route model
bindings or authorization gates you may have previously
registered in the AuthServiceProvider
may
also be registered in the
AppServiceProvider
.
Opt-in API and Broadcast Routing
The api.php
and channels.php
route files are no longer present by default, as many
applications do not require these files. Instead, they
may be created using simple Artisan commands:
php artisan install:api
php artisan install:broadcasting
Middleware
Previously, new Laravel applications included nine middleware. These middleware performed a variety of tasks such as authenticating requests, trimming input strings, and validating CSRF tokens.
In Laravel 11, these middleware have been moved into the
framework itself, so that they do not add bulk to your
application's structure. New methods for customizing the
behavior of these middleware have been added to the
framework and may be invoked from your application's
bootstrap/app.php
file:
->withMiddleware(function (Middleware $middleware) {
$middleware->validateCsrfTokens(
except: ['stripe/*']
);
$middleware->web(append: [
EnsureUserIsSubscribed::class,
])
})
Since all middleware can be easily customized via your
application's bootstrap/app.php
, the need
for a separate HTTP "kernel" class has been
eliminated.
Scheduling
Using a new Schedule
facade, scheduled tasks
may now be defined directly in your application's
routes/console.php
file, eliminating the
need for a separate console "kernel"
class:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schedule;
Schedule::command('emails:send')->daily();
Exception Handling
Like routing and middleware, exception handling can now
be customized from your application's
bootstrap/app.php
file instead of a
separate exception handler class, reducing the overall
number of files included in a new Laravel
application:
->withExceptions(function (Exceptions $exceptions) {
$exceptions->dontReport(MissedFlightException::class);
$exceptions->report(function (InvalidOrderException $e) {
// ...
});
})
Base Controller
Class
The base controller included in new Laravel applications
has been simplified. It no longer extends Laravel's
internal Controller
class, and the
AuthorizesRequests
and
ValidatesRequests
traits have been removed,
as they may be included in your application's individual
controllers if desired:
<?php
namespace App\Http\Controllers;
abstract class Controller
{
//
}
Application Defaults
By default, new Laravel applications use SQLite for
database storage, as well as the database
driver for Laravel's session, cache, and queue. This
allows you to begin building your application
immediately after creating a new Laravel application,
without being required to install additional software or
create additional database migrations.
In addition, over time, the database
drivers
for these Laravel services have become robust enough for
production usage in many application contexts;
therefore, they provide a sensible, unified choice for
both local and production applications.
Laravel Reverb
Laravel Reverb was developed by Joe Dixon.
Laravel Reverb brings blazing-fast and scalable real-time WebSocket communication directly to your Laravel application, and provides seamless integration with Laravel’s existing suite of event broadcasting tools, such as Laravel Echo.
php artisan reverb:start
In addition, Reverb supports horizontal scaling via Redis's publish / subscribe capabilities, allowing you to distribute your WebSocket traffic across multiple backend Reverb servers all supporting a single, high-demand application.
For more information on Laravel Reverb, please consult the complete Reverb documentation.
Per-Second Rate Limiting
Per-second rate limiting was contributed by Tim MacDonald.
Laravel now supports "per-second" rate limiting for all rate limiters, including those for HTTP requests and queued jobs. Previously, Laravel's rate limiters were limited to "per-minute" granularity:
RateLimiter::for('invoices', function (Request $request) {
return Limit::perSecond(1);
});
For more information on rate limiting in Laravel, check out the rate limiting documentation.
Health Routing
Health routing was contributed by Taylor Otwell.
New Laravel 11 applications include a health
routing directive, which instructs Laravel to define a
simple health-check endpoint that may be invoked by
third-party application health monitoring services or
orchestration systems like Kubernetes. By default, this
route is served at /up
:
->withRouting(
web: __DIR__.'/../routes/web.php',
commands: __DIR__.'/../routes/console.php',
health: '/up',
)
When HTTP requests are made to this route, Laravel will
also dispatch a DiagnosingHealth
event,
allowing you to perform additional health checks that
are relevant to your application.
Graceful Encryption Key Rotation
Graceful encryption key rotation was contributed by Taylor Otwell.
Since Laravel encrypts all cookies, including your application's session cookie, essentially every request to a Laravel application relies on encryption. However, because of this, rotating your application's encryption key would log all users out of your application. In addition, decrypting data that was encrypted by the previous encryption key becomes impossible.
Laravel 11 allows you to define your application's
previous encryption keys as a comma-delimited list via
the APP_PREVIOUS_KEYS
environment
variable.
When encrypting values, Laravel will always use the
"current" encryption key, which is within the
APP_KEY
environment variable. When
decrypting values, Laravel will first try the current
key. If decryption fails using the current key, Laravel
will try all previous keys until one of the keys is able
to decrypt the value.
This approach to graceful decryption allows users to keep using your application uninterrupted even if your encryption key is rotated.
For more information on encryption in Laravel, check out the encryption documentation.
Automatic Password Rehashing
Automatic password rehashing was contributed by Stephen Rees-Carter.
Laravel's default password hashing algorithm is bcrypt.
The "work factor" for bcrypt hashes can be
adjusted via the config/hashing.php
configuration file or the BCRYPT_ROUNDS
environment variable.
Typically, the bcrypt work factor should be increased over time as CPU / GPU processing power increases. If you increase the bcrypt work factor for your application, Laravel will now gracefully and automatically rehash user passwords as users authenticate with your application.
Prompt Validation
Prompt validator integration was contributed by Andrea Marco Sartori.
Laravel Prompts is a PHP package for adding beautiful and user-friendly forms to your command-line applications, with browser-like features including placeholder text and validation.
Laravel Prompts supports input validation via closures:
$name = text(
label: 'What is your name?',
validate: fn (string $value) => match (true) {
strlen($value) < 3 => 'The name must be at least 3 characters.',
strlen($value) > 255 => 'The name must not exceed 255 characters.',
default => null
}
);
However, this can become cumbersome when dealing with many inputs or complicated validation scenarios. Therefore, in Laravel 11, you may utilize the full power of Laravel's validator when validating prompt inputs:
$name = text('What is your name?', validate: [
'name' => 'required|min:3|max:255',
]);
Queue Interaction Testing
Queue interaction testing was contributed by Taylor Otwell.
Previously, attempting to test that a queued job was
released, deleted, or manually failed was cumbersome and
required the definition of custom queue fakes and stubs.
However, in Laravel 11, you may easily test for these
queue interactions using the
withFakeQueueInteractions
method:
use App\Jobs\ProcessPodcast;
$job = (new ProcessPodcast)->withFakeQueueInteractions();
$job->handle();
$job->assertReleased(delay: 30);
For more information on testing queued jobs, check out the queue documentation.
New Artisan Commands
Class creation Artisan commands were contributed by Taylor Otwell.
New Artisan commands have been added to allow the quick creation of classes, enums, interfaces, and traits:
php artisan make:class
php artisan make:enum
php artisan make:interface
php artisan make:trait
Model Casts Improvements
Model casts improvements were contributed by Nuno Maduro.
Laravel 11 supports defining your model's casts using a method instead of a property. This allows for streamlined, fluent cast definitions, especially when using casts with arguments:
/**
* Get the attributes that should be cast.
*
* @return array<string, string>
*/
protected function casts(): array
{
return [
'options' => AsCollection::using(OptionCollection::class),
// AsEncryptedCollection::using(OptionCollection::class),
// AsEnumArrayObject::using(OptionEnum::class),
// AsEnumCollection::using(OptionEnum::class),
];
}
For more information on attribute casting, review the Eloquent documentation.
The once
Function
The once
helper was contributed by Taylor
Otwell and Nuno
Maduro.
The once
helper function executes the given
callback and caches the result in memory for the
duration of the request. Any subsequent calls to the
once
function with the same callback will
return the previously cached result:
function random(): int
{
return once(function () {
return random_int(1, 1000);
});
}
random(); // 123
random(); // 123 (cached result)
random(); // 123 (cached result)
For more information on the once
helper,
check out the helpers
documentation.
Improved Performance When Testing With In-Memory Databases
Improved in-memory database testing performance was contributed by Anders Jenbo
Laravel 11 offers a significant speed boost when using
the :memory:
SQLite database during
testing. To accomplish this, Laravel now maintains a
reference to PHP's PDO object and reuses it across
connections, often cutting total test run time in
half.
Improved Support for MariaDB
Improved support for MariaDB was contributed by Jonas Staudenmeir and Julius Kiekbusch
Laravel 11 includes improved support for MariaDB. In previous Laravel releases, you could use MariaDB via Laravel's MySQL driver. However, Laravel 11 now includes a dedicated MariaDB driver which provides better defaults for this database system.
For more information on Laravel's database drivers, check out the database documentation.
Inspecting Databases and Improved Schema Operations
Improved schema operations and database inspection was contributed by Hafez Divandari
Laravel 11 provides additional database schema operation and inspection methods, including the native modifying, renaming, and dropping of columns. Furthermore, advanced spatial types, non-default schema names, and native schema methods for manipulating tables, views, columns, indexes, and foreign keys are provided:
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Schema;
$tables = Schema::getTables();
$views = Schema::getViews();
$columns = Schema::getColumns('users');
$indexes = Schema::getIndexes('users');
$foreignKeys = Schema::getForeignKeys('users');