PHP First Release Candidate Released! New PHP Release Cycle Strategy Adopted

RC1 Released

The first Release Candidate (RC1) of the upcoming PHP 8.4 has been released. PHP 8.4-RC1 marks a significant milestone in the PHP 8.4 release cycle, as it has branched off from the PHP development branch and is now in a feature freeze state.
From this point forward, the PHP 8.4 branch will only receive bug fixes in preparation for the official release (GA) scheduled for November 21, 2024. There will be three more candidates (RC2, RC3, and RC4) before the first GA version, PHP 8.4.0.
PHP 8.4 is the first version to adopt the new PHP release cycle strategy. It is planned to receive two years of active support followed by two years of security updates.

New PHP Release Cycle Strategy

The PHP Core Team has approved an RFC outlining significant changes to the release cycle for current and future PHP versions.
The release cycle update RFC requests comments and votes on several changes, with two of the most important being the extension of the active maintenance period for each PHP version from one year to two years and the alignment of active support and end-of-life dates with the last day of the calendar year.
Previously, each major PHP version (e.g., PHP 8.3, 8.4, 8.5, etc.) received two years of active bug fixes and security fixes, followed by one year of security updates. This effectively meant that each major PHP version received a total of three years of support, forcing all PHP applications to upgrade to the next PHP version before this three-year period ended.
The newly adopted changes mean that each major PHP version will receive two years of security fixes instead of one. This essentially means that each PHP version will receive a total of four years of support—two years of active maintenance and two years of security fixes.
Additionally, the effective support and end-of-life dates have been moved to always end on the last day of the calendar year. Previously, when a new PHP version was released, the PHP versions in security-fix-only status would immediately end their lifecycle.
This release cycle change also applies to currently active PHP versions. The table below shows the updated active support and security support timelines:

PHP 8.4

PHP 8.4 brings several major new features, including attribute hooks, asymmetric visibility support, lazy objects, Unicode 16 support, improvements, and deprecations, marking a significant milestone for PHP.
Please note that PHP 8.4 is not yet suitable for production systems. However, PHP 8.4-RC1 Windows binaries are available for download, Docker/OCI images tagged as 8.4-rc are available on Docker Hub, and pre-built Linux packages are provided in the Ondrej/Remi repository.
Guidelines for compiling PHP from source on Ubuntu/Debian-based distributions and Fedora/RHEL-based systems are also outlined.

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