Should I use Laravel 4 or 5?

Last updated on October 5th, 2023 by Eric L. Barnes

This has been a hot question lately. It is always asked anytime a future release of anything hits the news. Of course the answer to the question is nuanced based on the askers history. My default response is to always go with the stable and upgrade later. Especially if you new to the framework. By waiting it gives the framework time to stable out, documentation revised, third party packages updated, and community tutorials to be released.

Laravel 5 is considered beta until November and breaking changes will happen between now and then. Save yourself some pain and frustration by just playing around with v5 until then.

Update: Laravel 5 is now officially released and is the recommended version.

Eric L. Barnes

Eric is the creator of Laravel News and has been covering Laravel since 2012.

Filed in:

Laravel Tutorials

Laravel Newsletter

Join 40k+ other developers and never miss out on new tips, tutorials, and more.

Laravel Jobs

Explore hundreds of open positions today.

View all jobs

Senior Software Engineer

Full Stack Engineer - Laravel

Design Focused Front-End Developer

Sr. Laravel Developer & Solutions Architect

Humbly Confident Senior Laravel Engineer

Tinkerwell

Enjoy coding and debugging in an editor designed for fast feedback and quick iterations. It's like a shell for your application – but with multi-line editing, code completion, and more.

Partners

View all →

Providing innovation and stability to ensure your web application succeeds.

The go-to PHP IDE with extensive out-of-the-box support for Laravel and its ecosystem.

Running an old Laravel version? Instant, automated Laravel upgrades and code modernization to keep your applications fresh.

Joel and Aaron, the two seasoned devs from the No Compromises podcast, are now available to hire for your Laravel project. ⬧ Flat rate of $9500/mo. ⬧ No lengthy sales process. ⬧ No contracts. ⬧ 100% money back guarantee.

Get Lucky Now - the ideal choice for Laravel Development, with over a decade of experience!

Access real-time search engine results through a simple API—no more scraping headaches! Use it for AI applications, SEO tools, product research, travel information, and more

The must-have code runner for Laravel developers. Tinker with AI, autocompletion and instant feedback on local and production environments.

Acquaint Softtech offers AI-ready Laravel developers who onboard in 48 hours at $3000/Month with no lengthy sales process and a 100 percent money-back guarantee.

SaaSykit is a Multi-tenant Laravel SaaS Starter Kit that comes with all features required to run a modern SaaS. Payments, Beautiful Checkout, Admin Panel, User dashboard, Auth, Ready Components, Stats, Blog, Docs and more.