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There is always a great deal of Joomla! development activity underway and communicating with other developers in the community is essential. This site is a resource for anyone looking to build or maintain software based on the Joomla! platform.

Your first glimpse at Joomla! 5.4.0 Alpha1

Joomla 5.4 Alpha 1

The Joomla! Project is pleased to announce the availability of the first Joomla 5.4 Alpha for testing.

What is this release for?

There are two main goals for Alpha releases:

  1. To provide developers with a foundation to test their extensions and report any issues well before the final release.
  2. To allow users to explore the new features introduced in Joomla 5.4.

For information on new deprecations and forward compatibility changes, please see the New deprecations section on the documentation site.
For details about the new 'Behaviour - Backward Compatibility 6' plugin, see the Compatibility Plugins section.

What is this release NOT for?

This alpha version of Joomla 5.4 is not suitable for production sites. It is for testing only.

Where to get it?

Download Joomla 5.4 Alpha 1

To always use the latest build of Joomla 5, we invite you to use the nightly build packages (updated every night).

To make it easier for newcomers, you can launch a free Joomla 5 website for testing at launch.joomla.org.

When is the final release due?

Joomla! 5.4 (general availability) will be released on or about 14th October 2025. The planned milestones are:

Alpha:

  • Alpha 1: 27. May 2025
  • Alpha 2: 24. June 2025
  • Alpha 3: 22. July 2025

Beta (Feature Freeze)

  • Beta 1: 19. August 2025
  • Beta 2: 02. September 2025
  • Beta 3: 16. September 2025

Release Candidate (Language Freeze)

  • RC1: 30. September 2025

Stable Release

  • 14. October 2025

Please note that dates may be subject to change depending on the availability of volunteers and circumstances beyond our control.

What’s new in Joomla 5.4 Alpha 1?

We are firmly committed to making the next generation of Joomla the best. So far, these are GitHub commits to version 5.4. We expect to commit other features for the next alpha2 and alpha3 releases.

Automated Core Updates

One of the most significant new features in Joomla 5.4 is the introduction of automated core updates, enabling Joomla to keep itself up to date without any user intervention. Automated updates are only available for sites that are publicly accessible on the internet.  

For testing purposes with Alpha 1, an identical release will be prepared with only an incremented release number.

  • 45143 Automated Core Updates client functionality.
  • 45517 Automated Updates information

Use of None in various filter options and list views

  • 45232 New '- None -' author filter option in the Articles view to select articles associated with deleted user entries.
  • 45274 New '- None -' tag filter option in the Articles view to select articles without tags.
  • 45459 New '- None -' tag filter option in the Contacts view to select contacts without tags.
  • 45460 New '- None -' tag filter option in the News Feeds view to select news feed entries without tags.
  • 45461 New '- None -' tag filter option in the Categories views to select categories without tags.
  • 45201 Shows '[ None ]' in the field group column for a field unassigned to any field group.
  • 45223 Shows '[ None ]' in the user column for a user note linked to a deleted user entry.

More links for user-friendliness

  • 45318 Added a link to more easily open the 'System – Maintenance – Database' view from the Pre-Update Check.
  • 45456 Added a link to more easily open the 'Mail Templates' view from the Update Notification.

What are the plans for Joomla 5.4?

We are at the beginning of the development of Joomla! 5.4, we have more than two months to add new features. If you have any idea for new functionality, feel free to discuss it on GitHub.

Be aware that these features are not release-ready yet, and it depends a lot on testers and feedback if they make the cut.

To learn more about our development strategy, please read this article.

How can you help Joomla 5.4 development?

To help ensure the 5.4 release and our major features are “production-ready”, we need your help testing releases and reporting any bugs you may find at issues.joomla.org.

Most of all, we encourage extension developers to roll up their sleeves, seek out bugs and test their extensions with Joomla 5.4 and communicate their experience.

Where can I find documentation about Joomla 5?

There are some tutorials to help you with Joomla 5. You can find the existing ones, like creating a Plugin or a Module for Joomla 5, namespaces conventions, prepared statements, using the new web asset classes and many more in https://docs.joomla.org/Category:Joomla!_5.x

We encourage developers to help write the documentation about Joomla 5 on docs.joomla.org and manual.joomla.org to help and guide users and other extension developers.

A JDocs page will help developers to see the existing documentation and the documentation still needed.

We invite you to check it regularly, update it and provide the missing content.

Related information

If you are an extension developer, please make sure you subscribe to the extension developer channel https://joomlacommunity.cloud.mattermost.com/main/channels/extension-development-room

Where you can join the community of extension developers.

A Huge Thank You to Our Volunteers!

A big thank you goes out to everyone who contributed to the release!

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