Laravel 11 to Laravel 12 Upgrade & Compatibility Enhancement

The Challenge

The client’s Laravel 11 application had grown complex over time, with several third-party dependencies, custom middleware, and outdated packages that were not compatible with the new Laravel 12 release.

The team was concerned about breaking changes, deprecated methods, and downtime during migration, as the app served thousands of daily users.

Key pain points included:

• Outdated package dependencies and composer conflicts
• Non-standard directory structure for newer Laravel conventions
• Custom authentication middleware incompatible with Laravel 12 guards
• Legacy job queue handling not optimized for the new queue driver system

The goal was to perform a safe, step-by-step Laravel 11 to 12 upgrade with complete dependency alignment, automated testing, and a rollback-safe deployment process.

Our Solution

We followed Laravel’s official upgrade path and documentation, executing a structured 4-phase migration plan:

1. Codebase Analysis & Dependency Audit

• Identified all outdated Composer packages and cross-checked them with Laravel 12 compatibility.
• Created a staging branch to isolate upgrade tasks and run automated tests before production merge.
• Used Laravel Shift and Larastan for code inspection and upgrade hints.

• Updated Laravel core from 11.x to 12.x with PHP 8.3 compatibility.
• Upgraded third-party packages including Spatie, Livewire, and Sanctum to their latest supported versions.
• Replaced deprecated functions (e.g., Route::controller syntax and middleware aliases).

• Refactored custom authentication and event listeners to align with the new bootstrap/app.php structure in Laravel 12.
• Rewrote jobs and listeners using the new queue syntax for better observability.
• Implemented feature and unit tests (90% coverage) using PHPUnit and Pest.
• Verified functionality through CI/CD pipelines in GitHub Actions for automated test runs and deployments.

• Deployed Laravel 12 using zero-downtime strategy (Envoyer) with backup rollbacks configured.
• Configured Redis cache and queue monitoring using Horizon to ensure stability.
• Used Telescope for post-upgrade performance benchmarking.

Key Features Delivered

• Seamless Laravel 11 → 12 upgrade with full backward compatibility
• Composer dependency management and conflict resolution
• Refactored authentication, queue, and routing layers
• Unit & feature testing with automated CI/CD validation
• Redis optimization for cache and queue performance
• Documentation update for developers and deployment team

Result & Impact

After migration, the system achieved a 30% improvement in response time due to framework optimizations and cache tuning.

All third-party integrations (Stripe, Mailgun, Spatie Roles, etc.) functioned flawlessly after the upgrade.

Developers reported a 25% boost in efficiency, thanks to Laravel 12’s new streamlined application structure and improved testing workflows.

The deployment process was completed with zero downtime, ensuring continuous availability to 8,000+ active users.

Within 2 months, the project delivered a 118% ROI, reduced maintenance costs, and ensured the platform’s long-term stability and compatibility with future Laravel releases.