Craft CMS 6 runs on Laravel.
The biggest architectural shift in Craft CMS history was announced on stage at Dot All 2025 in Lisbon — and it is already in alpha. Here is what actually changes, what survives untouched, and what to do about it, with every fact traced to a primary source.
- Alpha — shipping now
- Beta — expected Q3 2026
- GA — expected Q4 2026
Facts last verified against primary sources: August 2026.
Announced at Dot All Lisbon: Craft CMS 6 swaps the Yii framework for Laravel.
First alpha shipped — Pixel & Tonic calls the codebase "completely ported to Laravel".
Expected general-availability release, after a Q3 beta.
Craft CMS 5 becomes an LTS release — security support runs to the end of 2031. No cliff.
What was actually announced
Not marketing paraphrase — this is what Pixel & Tonic committed to in the announcement post, the alpha release notes and the official documentation.
A port, not a rewrite
Officially "(mostly) a strict port to Laravel": Yii components are swapped for Laravel equivalents — ActiveRecord for Eloquent, plus the container, router, events, cache and queues — with deliberately little refactoring. Your content model, elements, fields, Matrix and the plugin architecture carry over unchanged.
Why: Yii is winding down
Yii 2’s own maintainers have scheduled the wind-down — bug fixes through 2027, security fixes through 2028. Laravel is "by far the most familiar PHP framework among Craft developers", with the largest package ecosystem and hiring pool in PHP. The move was forced and smart at the same time.
Plugins get a runway
A compatibility layer — craftcms/yii2-adapter — lets Craft CMS 5 plugins and custom modules run on Craft CMS 6 "in most cases without making a single change". It is a deprecation runway rather than a destination: vendors port natively over time, and the adapter keeps sites working meanwhile.
Craft CMS becomes a Laravel package
The deeper change: Craft CMS 6 can be installed into an existing Laravel application and run alongside your own code. Pixel & Tonic "rearchitected how Craft works in relationship to its framework" — a CMS your Laravel team adds to their app, not a walled garden next to it.
Twig stays. Blade joins.
Templates do not need to be rewritten: Twig remains the default templating language in the Craft CMS 6 docs. Blade becomes an option alongside it — the two interoperate, so a Twig template can render Blade views and vice versa. Adopt Blade if and when it earns its place.
Editors finally get the goods
The Craft 2→3 framework migration infamously shipped no author-facing features. Lesson learned: Craft CMS 6 pairs the port with content releases, scheduled drafts, approval workflows, content importing, edit-page commenting, activity logs — and a control panel rebuilt as a Vue/Inertia app.
No cliff for Craft CMS 5
Craft CMS 5 is now a long-term-support release: active support to December 31, 2030 and security fixes to December 31, 2031 — far beyond the usual policy, granted explicitly because of the framework transition. Nobody is being stranded or rushed.
Hosting opens up
A Craft CMS 6 project is a standard Laravel application, so Laravel-native platforms — Laravel Cloud, Forge, Vapor — join self-hosting and Craft Cloud as first-class options. The binding constraint to plan for: PHP 8.5 minimum.
From quiet heads-up to GA
- Jun 2024
The quiet heads-up
Pixel & Tonic’s "Change of Plans" post announces that Dot All Lisbon is "where we’ll announce Craft 6 and kick off our transition to Laravel" — a full year of warning.
- Sep 2025
Announced on stage, then in writing
CEO Brandon Kelly presents the move in the Dot All 2025 keynote (Sept 23–25, Lisbon); the official "Craft’s Going Laravel" post follows on Sept 29 with the adapter, LTS and timeline commitments.
- May 2026
Alpha ships — the port is done
Craft CMS 6.0.0-alpha.1 lands on May 6 with the codebase "completely ported to Laravel" after a year of work. Three Yii-inspired Laravel packages are open-sourced along the way.
- Aug 2026
You are here: alpha iterating fastNow
New alphas land every one to two weeks — alpha.17 shipped August 18. Craft CMS 5 is maintained in lock-step: 5.10.14 shipped the same day. Beta has not been tagged yet.
- Q3–Q4 2026
Beta, then GA
The official plan: beta in Q3 2026, general availability in Q4. Pixel & Tonic’s Dot One events in October are already scheduled around Craft CMS 6 sessions.
- 2027
The sensible production window
First GA releases of any platform earn their scars in public. For most production sites, a planned Craft CMS 5→6 upgrade in 2027 captures the benefits and skips the pioneering.
- Dec 2031
Craft CMS 5 security support ends
The LTS window closes: active support ends Dec 31, 2030, security fixes end Dec 31, 2031. That is the real deadline — five years out, not five months.
What it means for your website
Your visitors notice nothing.
The framework is server-side plumbing. Front-end templates, URLs, SEO, performance characteristics — all untouched by the port itself.
Your editors get a better tool.
A redesigned control panel plus the publishing features agencies have been asked about for years: releases, scheduled drafts, approvals, comments, activity logs.
Your plugins keep working — on a timer.
The Yii adapter carries Craft CMS 5 plugins and custom modules across day one. Treat it as time bought for an orderly native migration, not a permanent free pass.
Your upgrade is a project, not a click.
Latest Craft CMS 5 first, PHP 8.5, plugins updated, then the official conversion tool restructures the project into a standard Laravel app. Small, structured, plannable — typically days, not months.
Your hiring problem shrinks.
Laravel is the largest PHP talent pool there is. The old procurement objection — "who else could ever maintain this?" — dies at the framework level.
Unless you are on Craft CMS 4. Then hurry.
Craft CMS 4 security support already ended on April 30, 2026. That upgrade is not a someday item — every month on an unpatched CMS is exposure. Move to Craft CMS 5 now and decide about 6 later, calmly.
What the people who matter say
Including the competitor’s counter-argument — you should hear it from us, not discover it later.
“Laravel is by far the most familiar PHP framework among Craft developers, and it comes with a massive ecosystem of Laravel-optimized packages and services Craft will be able to tap into.”
“Craft is an amazing CMS built by a great team that really cares about UX and DX. We’re stoked to welcome Craft into the Laravel community with Craft 6.”
“Having the Yii adapter to essentially keep plugins as-is, indefinitely, is a big win for developers and clients.”
“The adapter buys you time, not a permanent free pass.”
“It’s a port of Yii-era architecture, not a clean-sheet Laravel design.”
Craft CMS 6 readiness, while safely on 5
Every step below is zero-risk Craft CMS 5 work — and every one of them shortens the eventual upgrade.
- 01
Get current on Craft CMS 5
The upgrade path starts at the latest 5.x release. If you are behind, catching up is the cheapest progress available.
- 02
Clear the deprecation log
Craft CMS 5’s deprecation warnings are, in effect, your Craft CMS 6 readiness report. An empty log means most of the upgrade is already done.
- 03
Convert Categories, Tags and Globals to entries
The writing is on the wall for the legacy element types. Converting is voluntary today, expected eventually — do it on your schedule, not under deadline.
- 04
Audit your plugin stack
For each plugin: does the vendor have a Craft CMS 6 plan, will it ride the adapter, or is it abandoned? Abandoned plugins are the one genuine upgrade risk — find out now, not in 2027.
- 05
Line up PHP 8.5 hosting
Craft CMS 6 requires PHP 8.5 minimum. Confirm your host’s roadmap — or treat the upgrade as the moment to move somewhere better.
We are already running the alphas
Wideweb is a Craft CMS Verified Partner — verified by the people making this transition. We track every alpha, test our clients’ stacks against it, and will tell you the one thing most agencies won’t: whether you should care yet.
Get a free Craft CMS 6 readiness auditQuestions clients actually ask
- When will Craft CMS 6 be released?
- The official plan: beta in Q3 2026 and general availability in Q4 2026. The first alpha shipped May 6, 2026 with the Laravel port complete, and new alphas have landed every one to two weeks since. For production sites, we recommend planning the upgrade for 2027 — after GA has proven itself.
- Will my Craft CMS 5 plugins work in Craft CMS 6?
- In most cases, yes — Pixel & Tonic ships a compatibility layer (the Yii 2 adapter) so existing plugins and custom modules run "without making a single change". Major vendors like Verbb are on board. The honest caveat: the adapter is a runway, not a destination — abandoned plugins with no maintainer are the real risk, so audit your stack now.
- Do I have to upgrade? How long will Craft CMS 5 be supported?
- No rush — Craft CMS 5 is a long-term-support release with active support to December 31, 2030 and security fixes to December 31, 2031. The exception is Craft CMS 4 and older: security support ended April 30, 2026, so those sites should move to 5 immediately.
- Does Twig go away in Craft CMS 6?
- No. Twig remains the default templating language, so existing templates do not need a rewrite. Laravel’s Blade becomes an additional option, and the two interoperate — Twig can render Blade views and vice versa.
- Why is Craft CMS moving from Yii to Laravel?
- Two reasons. Yii 2 is winding down — its maintainers have scheduled the end of bug fixes (2027) and security fixes (2028). And Laravel is the most familiar PHP framework among Craft CMS developers, with the largest package ecosystem and hiring pool in PHP. The move fixes a dependency risk and a talent bottleneck in one decision.
- Can we add Craft CMS to our existing Laravel application?
- Yes — that is the headline architectural change. Craft CMS 6 installs as a Laravel package and runs alongside your own application code, with Laravel-native hosting (Laravel Cloud, Forge, Vapor) fully supported. If your product team already lives in Laravel, Craft CMS stops being a separate system and becomes part of the app.
- Is this going to be another painful Craft 2-to-3 style migration?
- The entire transition is explicitly designed against that memory. Craft 2→3 took years and forced every plugin to be rewritten; Craft CMS 6 is a strict port with a compatibility adapter, no forced timeline, a five-year LTS on Craft CMS 5, and real editor-facing features as the payoff. Different playbook, learned the hard way.
- How does this change the Craft CMS vs Statamic question?
- It neutralizes Statamic’s biggest structural argument — "we’re Laravel-native, they’re not." Statamic’s fair counter is that it has been Laravel-native for 8+ years while Craft CMS 6 is a port. In practice the products still diverge: database-backed structured content at scale versus flat-file-first simplicity. Bring us your case and we’ll tell you honestly which fits — we say the same about WordPress.
Sources: "Craft’s Going Laravel" — official announcement · Craft 6 Alpha release post · Official Craft 6 × Laravel page · Supported versions & LTS dates · Craft 6 upgrade guide · GitHub releases (alpha cadence) · Josh Crawford (Verbb) interview · Viget: Craft 6 and Laravel · Laravel News coverage · Statamic’s comparison page