Laravel 11, released on March 12, 2024, brings a multitude of enhancements aimed at making web development more efficient and secure. Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know.
March 14, 2024
Laravel 11, released on March 12, 2024, is here to streamline your web development workflow and boost your application's security. This new version introduces a range of enhancements designed to make development faster and more efficient.
- Enhanced Performance: Experience faster applications thanks to improvements in routing, caching, and data handling.
- Improved Security: Benefit from the latest security features and bug fixes to protect your applications and data.
- New Developer Tools: Streamline your development process with better debugging tools, new Artisan commands (Laravel's command-line interface), and improved documentation.
- Simplified Upgrade Process: Upgrading from Laravel 10 is straightforward, allowing you to quickly leverage the new features.
- Full PHP 8.2 Compatibility: Take advantage of the latest features in PHP 8.2 to build even more powerful and modern applications.
Key Features in Laravel 11
- Simplified Project Structure: Laravel 11 features a streamlined project structure with fewer preset directories, making navigation and project management easier.
- Configuration Streamlined: Configuration and settings are now centralized in
.envfiles, providing a more organized approach to application configuration. - Enhanced Data Handling and Middleware Management: Laravel 11 offers improved tools for data handling and middleware management, simplifying complex tasks.
- Improved Scheduling and Bug Fixing: The new version boasts better scheduling functionalities and improved bug fixing tools to enhance development efficiency.
- Optimized Routing and Model Relations: Experience optimizations in route organization and model relationships for a more robust development experience.
- Advanced Rate Limiting and Health Checks: Laravel 11 introduces advanced rate limiting features and a new health check endpoint for improved application security and monitoring.
Upgrading to Laravel 11 empowers developers (that's us) to build faster, more secure, and modern web applications with the help of the latest features and development tools. By leveraging the improved performance and streamlined development process, the focus can be on creating fast, efficient and secure applications.
Laravel 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.
| Version | PHP (*) | Release | Bug Fixes Until | Security Fixes Until |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laravel 9 | 8.0 - 8.2 | February 8th, 2022 | August 8th, 2023 | February 6th, 2024 |
| Laravel 10 | 8.1 - 8.3 | February 14th, 2023 | August 6th, 2024 | February 4th, 2025 |
| Laravel 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 |
In Conclusion
Upgrading to Laravel 11 offers several advantages for a web application. It prioritises security with new features and bug fixes, it also streamlines development by improving the developer experience and providing better developer tools, this will save your business time and money. Since Laravel 11 is still very new, you may want to carefully consider your options for upgrading and the impact it will have on your existing web applications.