The Joomla! Project is pleased to announce the availability of the first Joomla 6.0 Alpha 2 for testing.

What is this release for?

There are two main goals for Alpha releases:

• Providing developers with the basis to test their extensions and reporting any issues well before the final release
• Allowing users to discover the new features introduced to Joomla 6.0.

For a complete list of known backward compatibility issues for version 6.0, please see Potential backward compatibility issues in Joomla 6.0 on the documentation site.

See the New deprecations section for what's newly deprecated. For background on why the new 'Behaviour - Backward Compatibility 6' plugin is included in Joomla 5 and how it works, see the  Compatibility Plugins section.

For info on the Backward Compatibility 6 plugin for Joomla 6 see https://manual.joomla.org/migrations/54-60/compat-plugin/

What is this release NOT for?

This alpha version of Joomla 6.0 is not suitable for production sites. It is for testing only.

Where to get it?

Download Joomla 6.0 Alpha 2

To always use the latest build of Joomla 6, 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! 6.0 (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 (this release)
• 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)

• RC 1: 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 6.0 Alpha 2?

We are firmly committed to making the next generation of Joomla the best. So far, these are the first features that have been committed to version 6.0. We expect to commit other features for the next alpha2 and alpha3 releases.

Features

• [6.0] Media: allow thumbnail for any file type
• [6.x] Use Dialog for Article links, when "modal option" is selected
• [6.0] Added possibility to batch remove a tag
• [6.0] New Date and Datetime fields
• [6.0] Enable support for multiple image extensions in Random Image module
• [6.0] Modification fields header tag, module tag add custom options in XML

Technical fixes and improvements

• [6.0] The admin model does return a stdClass instead of CMSObject
• [6.0] Remove deprecated db object from views
• [6.0] Workflow: use generic AbstractApplication in type hint
• [6.0] Installer: Remove dependency on Adapter class
• [6.0] Updater: Remove Adapter classes from inheritance
• [6.0] CategoryNode/Changelog: Remove legacy error handling trait
• [6.0] Smart Search: Removing dependency on CMSObject
• [6.0] Remove instances of Table::getInstance() from core code
• [6.0] Remove leftover reCaptcha files
• [6.0] Fixes the missing modified start and end date filter to articled API endpoint

Authors of Merged Pull Requests

The Joomla project is very thankful for the contributions from the following authors:

Bembelimen, beni71, brianteeman, brbrbr, chmst, dgrammatiko, Fedik, Hackwar, HLeithner, joomdonation, korenevskiy, laoneo, Quy, richard67, zero-24

Key Features & Improvements

• New Date and Datetime fields
• Batch tag removal functionality
• Media manager thumbnails for any file type
• Language file caching
• Task runner functionality
• Compatibility plugin for Joomla 6.0 migration

What are the plans for Joomla 6.0?

Currently, we’re at the start of the journey of Joomla! 6.0. There are several projects which, with your help, could become part of Joomla! 6.0, if they are release-ready before the first beta is released on August 19th 2025.

• Healthchecker
• SEO
• Migration tool

We are at the beginning of the development of Joomla! 6.0, 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 6.0 development?

To help ensure the 6.0 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 5.3 and communicate their experience.

Where can I find documentation about Joomla 6?

We encourage developers to help write the documentation about Joomla 6 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.

• Working with the Joomla Feature Tracker
• General developer mailing list
• Joomla developer network
• Joomla and UI framework

A Huge Thank You to Our Volunteers!

A big thank you goes out to everyone who contributed to the release!  We would like to acknowledge the special group of people who tested the PR’s ready for merging.  The following people gave their time to test:

Ceford, exlemor, Quy, QuyTon, krishnaGandhi11, brianteeman, martin-zw, ghost, obuisard, alikon, rakibhossainraju, degobbis, SarahBerryman12

Special thanks from the Joomla 6.0 Release Managers, for all the support from the following people:  

Martina Scholz, Benjamin Trenkle, Richard Fath and Heiko Lübbe.