Announcing Silverstripe CMS 5 beta

We are thrilled to announce that our development team has achieved a significant milestone by releasing Silverstripe CMS 5.0.0 Beta 1! This release marks the end of major development work and the start of an exciting journey towards a stable release.

But what exactly is a beta release?

Simply put, it's a pre-release software that is expected to have more bugs than a stable release. It’s not recommended to run production projects on a beta release.

In terms of new features, the primary focus of this major release is to "pay down technical debt" and upgrade dependencies. You will see improvements like upgrading to TinyMCE 6 which ships with new plugins, switching from SwiftMailer to SymfonyMailer, and upgrading to Flysystem 3. While these changes may not be noticeable in the short term, they open up new avenues for improvement in future minor releases.

We have upgraded dependencies to their latest versions, made sure supported modules can be installed against Silverstripe CMS 5, and removed deprecated code from the codebase. But there's still a lot of work to be done, which is why we need your help.

What can my team do with this beta release?

We are inviting early adopters to preview the upcoming release and contribute to the testing process. Whether you want to start upgrading your own modules, scope upgrades for your existing Silverstripe CMS 4 projects, or help identify issues, this beta release is for you! Just make sure to raise any issues you find on our GitHub repositories and let us know if it affects Silverstripe CMS 5.

If you're starting a new project tomorrow, the decision to use the beta release depends on how risk-averse you and your client are. Keep in mind that some third-party modules may still need to be upgraded, so check before proceeding.

What about Silverstripe CMS 4?

Silverstripe CMS 4 is NOT going away. We will be releasing Silverstripe CMS 4.13 before the stable release of Silverstripe CMS 5, which will contain an updated list of deprecated API warnings to help facilitate your upgrade. Following the release of Silverstripe CMS 5, Silverstripe CMS 4 will have one year of general bug fixes and support, followed by one year of high impact security fixes. This means that Silverstripe CMS 4 still has two years of life before it goes end-of-life.

You can learn more about the support structure in our Major Release Policy or see the roadmap for more specific timeframes.

I’m a developer and want all the gory details

The Silverstripe CMS 5 beta changelog includes the information you need to start scoping and planning upgrades for your projects.

Review the Silverstripe CMS 5.0.0-beta1 changelog.