Laravel 12: New Starter Kits, Seamless Upgrades, and More

Laravel 12 is officially out, bringing exciting updates like new starter kits for React, Vue, and Livewire, alongside vital upstream dependency updates. Let’s dive into what makes this release special and how it enhances your development experience.

A Maintenance-Focused Release

Laravel 12 focuses on maintenance, ensuring stability while updating upstream dependencies. This approach means minimal breaking changes, allowing most applications to upgrade without altering existing code. It’s all about keeping your apps modern and secure with less hassle.

As Laravel’s ecosystem grows, the team prioritizes shipping features year-round without disrupting existing applications. Yearly releases now primarily handle dependency updates and compatibility with new PHP versions, making Laravel a future-proof choice for developers.

New Starter Kits: React, Vue, and Livewire

One of the most anticipated features in Laravel 12 is the introduction of new starter kits, designed to streamline development with your favorite front-end frameworks:

• React, Vue, and Livewire support
• Shadcn components for sleek, pre-built UI elements
• Flux components (free version) for the Livewire stack

Each starter kit also includes a WorkOS AuthKit variant, adding flexible authentication options:

• Social authentication (Google, Facebook, etc.)
• Passkey authentication for enhanced security
• Email-based authentication
• SSO with WorkOS for enterprise-level integration

With these kits, you can jumpstart your project with authentication, UI components, and modern development practices already baked in.

PHP 8.2 Minimum Support

Laravel 12 continues to require PHP 8.2 as the baseline, ensuring compatibility with the latest PHP features and security improvements. This commitment to modern PHP versions helps your application stay fast, secure, and ready for future advancements.

How to Install Laravel 12

Getting started with Laravel 12 is straightforward. If you’re using Laravel Herd, updating to the latest version will automatically provide the new installer. Alternatively, you can install or update the Laravel Installer globally:

composer global require laravel/installer

Then, create a new Laravel project with:

laravel new projectname

By keeping upgrades simple and introducing powerful new starter kits, Laravel 12 empowers developers to build faster, more secure, and scalable web applications.

Are you excited about Laravel 12? Let us know which feature you’re most eager to try out!