What’s New in Laravel 12: Faster Startups, Modern Stack Integration, and Developer Experience

Laravel 12 introduces brand‑new starter kits based on shadcn/ui components, integrated directly into the framework rather than via Composer packages. These kits offer out‑of‑the‑box scaffolding for Vue, React, and Livewire, pulling in modern UI patterns from the start

Why it matters: Jumpstart frontend development with pre-built components and a clean, maintainable architecture—no more boilerplate hunting.

This release upgrades to Vite 6 and Tailwind CSS 4, ensuring developers use the latest tooling for fast bundling and utility-first styling

• Vite 6 adds optimizations for caching, asset delivery, and multi-entry points.

• Tailwind 4.0 introduces improved JIT performance, expanded utilities, and better theme config.

These upgrades mean faster compilation and richer CSS capabilities, straight out of the box.

Laravel uses semantic versioning. Version 11 will receive security fixes until March 2026, and version 12 will be supported through early 2027

Recommendation: For greenfield projects or fully tested existing apps, upgrading to Laravel 12 unlocks cutting-edge features. For ongoing Laravel 11 applications, plan carefully: upgrade only when it aligns with your development and testing strategy.

1. Clone your repo & run tests.
2. Update PHP (8.2+) and composer.json to require^12.0.
3. Migrate config/Sass/JS to use Vite 6 and Tailwind 4 presets.
4. Install your desired starter kit, e.g.:

php artisan ui react --shadcn

Rebuild front end:

npm install && npm run dev

Verify UI and frontend experience across components.