Laravel 11

Laravel 11 raised the minimum PHP version to PHP 8.2 and substantially simplified the default application skeleton. New applications consolidate routing, middleware, and exception configuration in bootstrap/app.php, reduce the number of default configuration files and middleware classes, and include a built-in health-check endpoint. API routes, broadcasting configuration, and some other features are no longer enabled in a new application by default; installers add them when needed. The release also added features such as per-second rate limiting, encryption-key rotation support, a once helper for executing callbacks only once per request, improved model casting conventions, and first-party Reverb support for WebSocket applications. Existing Laravel applications can retain their prior structure during an upgrade, but teams adopting the new skeleton need to move configuration deliberately rather than treating it as a mechanical file replacement.

Laravel 11 has reached end of life. It no longer receives upstream security fixes, bug fixes, or compatibility maintenance, so a newly discovered framework vulnerability or incompatibility must be mitigated by the application team, a community patch, or a migration. The risk rises as PHP versions, database clients, queue back ends, cloud runtimes, and Laravel packages move forward and stop testing against this line. Remaining on Laravel 11 can also make later upgrades harder: deferred dependency updates accumulate, custom workarounds become embedded in application code, and packages may require newer Laravel or PHP versions before the team is ready to adopt them.

Choose a currently supported Laravel target and review its PHP, Composer, database-driver, cache, queue, Node, and deployment-runtime requirements before changing application code. Inventory direct and transitive Composer dependencies, private packages, front-end tooling, and operational integrations; identify packages that do not support the target version and replace, upgrade, or fork them before the framework change. Follow the intervening Laravel upgrade guides in order, run automated tests after each step, and add coverage for authentication, authorization, validation, queues, scheduled commands, events, mail, storage, payments, and critical API contracts where coverage is missing. If the application uses Laravel 11's streamlined bootstrap structure, verify route registration, middleware aliases and order, exception reporting, health checks, API routing, and broadcasting explicitly. Rehearse the upgrade in an environment representative of production, test rollback and background-worker deployment procedures, then deploy with monitoring for application errors, queue failures, latency, and dependency-related warnings.