Craft CMS 3 - 4 Should you upgrade?

If you’re a Craft CMS 3 user you may already be aware that it reached end of life at the end of April 2024. If it’s something you haven’t considered so far, now is the time to upgrade your site.

What does this mean if you’re using Craft CMS 3?

There will be no further updates or security patches from Pixel and Tonic. Any plugin that is running on Craft 3 will no longer receive updates. That means your site may not be as secure as you or your clients would want. With this in mind, we’d recommend anyone on Craft 3 upgrades as soon as it’s convenient.

If you’re not a webdna customer, it’s important that you talk to your own developer to understand what the implications could look like for your organisation. You should also consider what plugins you have on your Craft CMS 3 site. As plugin developers move towards Craft 5 and 4, existing Craft CMS 3 plugins will begin to lose their support.

Should I upgrade to Craft 4 or Craft 5

Currently, Craft releases newer versions of their software every 2-4 years with full support of any version covering 4-6 years. A log of these updates can be found in their Major Version History. Craft 5 is now available, so for many site owners, it will make sense to upgrade to version 5. It’s not as simple as moving from Craft 3 to Craft 5. Your developers will still need to upgrade your site to Craft CMS 4 and then to Craft CMS 5. But doing the upgrades as part of the same project will save you time overall so will likely work out more cost effective.

Craft 4 is supported until April 30th 2025 and both Craft CMS 5 and Craft Commerce 5 are out of beta. This means that you will have options but it’s worth keeping in mind that this latest version of Craft CMS and Commerce 5 is Pixel and Tonic’s biggest upgrade yet. For most businesses, we’d definitely recommend upgrading to this to take advantage of all the great new features not just for developers but for Content Managers.

What’s the difference between Craft 3, Craft 4 and Craft 5?

Every time Craft CMS releases an update, things just get better and better. Pixel and Tonic are great at listening to users and content managers as well as developers. So, whatever your field of expertise, you’re likely to benefit from any upgrades right away.

The major change with Craft 4 is performance. There were a range of efficiency improvements to boost site performance, especially for editing of pages. And then of course there's the continuing security updates. If you’re interested in the finer details, you can read more about why we were so excited by the Craft 4 update.

Craft 5 demonstrates significant improvements to content modelling, a refined user interface and of course the introduction of features such as two-factor authentication. And, they’ve managed to include so much more flexibility than in previous iterations. Our team simplified everything you need to know about Craft 5 here if you’d like to find out more for yourself.

If I migrate to Craft CMS 4 or 5, how might it work?

Things might work a little differently developer to developer. Our advice would be to talk to us to get a clear understanding of the process so that you can fully understand how it might impact your day-to-day operations.

A typical Craft CMS migration to Craft 4 for us might include:

• Updating all core functionality to Craft CMS 4x or Craft CMS 5x

• Upgrading all plugins and modules to be Craft Craft CMS 4x or Craft CMS 5x compatible

• Replacing any plugins or modules that cannot be upgraded

• Re-writing any custom code that is not Craft CMS 4x or Craft CMS 5x compatible

• Newsletter system data transfer update

• Testing and full quality assurance

• Release to live.

For more information about Craft CMS or to talk to us about Craft CMS 3’s end of life and Migrating to Craft CMS 4 or Craft 5, get in touch with our team and let’s have a chat.