The last day of support for Craft CMS 4 is approaching. The 30th of April 2026, Pixel and Tonic will officially stop supporting this version. Below we discuss what this means for you.

Security

The main reason to update from Craft 4 is the security risks involved with using an unsupported platform. As of April 30th 2026, Pixel and Tonic (The creators of Craft CMS) will no longer be patching vulnerabilities. As the web evolves and bad actors find more ways to attack, the risks become higher over time.

Craft 5 has official support until the 31st of December 2031, so you will have peace of mind for the next 5 years. Pixel and Tonic have also added more secure features such as two factor authentication (2FA) in Craft 5.

Usability / Accessibility

If you are familiar with using Craft CMS, moving to Craft 5 might seem like a monumental change. The control panel has been improved to make it easier to find what you are looking for and to make it more accessible for users with disabilities.

One of my favourite features added to the control panel is the addition of slide out panels. You no longer need to switch between entries to change content in linked pages. Now, with a simple double click, a slide out panel will give you access to the content for that entry.

A new native matrix type has been added to make the stacking of content on a page much easier. Now it is less likely to get content overload and it is easier to move content structure up and down the page. Sometimes there is a need to use 3rd party plugins to create complex nested content. This would rely on the developers of the plugin to make usability changes. Now Pixel and Tonic have taken it into their own hands and improved nested content for the better.

There is now the ability to colour code blocks, give blocks icons and group blocks into specific categories. This allows developers to segregate content types so content creators can easily find what they are looking for.

Sometimes there is a need to copy content from one page to another, or you want to use that content as a base for something else. Craft 5 now has a feature that allows you to copy and paste blocks from one page to another. If you wanted to, you could copy an entire page from one section to another. This has been a massive time saver on projects that use a multi-site setup.

Plugins

Most Craft CMS builds rely on plugins to get the site built in a timely and costly manner. This could be to create nested content or to allow content creators to create a navigation in the CMS. Now that Craft 4 will no longer be supported, developers are going to follow suit and stop support for these versions. 

There is potential for Plugins to break, such as the Instagram Feed plugin. The creator had to change how it worked because of the API changes made by Meta. This happened during the major update of Craft 3 and 4, a few years ago. If you were still using an old version of Craft at the time, then the entire feed would stop working.

There is no incentive for Plugin Developers to add features to older versions of their plugins. Pixel and Tonic have also made some plugins obsolete by adding the functionality natively. By switching to native functionality, this would lead to cheaper renewal costs. Another win would be using less 3rd party code, your site will be more reliable and secure.

Performance

Craft uses more modern server infrastructure, making how it works in the background more efficient. There is nothing more annoying than waiting a while to add an image to an entry for it to sit on the loading wheel before you can actually see anything. Pixel and Tonic have made massive improvements in handling sites with high traffic and large amounts of content.

What’s involved

An added benefit of Craft CMS is the ease to update, which in turn drives the cost down. Although the process is straightforward it still requires someone with development experience with Craft to update everything.

We take the stress out of making the update, making sure all plugins are checked for compatibility with Craft 5 and only keep plugins that are actually needed. Testing is done after the update to make sure everything is stable and working as it should. After the update is complete you now get to experience all the benefits Craft 5 has to offer. 

We cover major CMS updates within our monthly maintenance packages. Updating your site to Craft 5 can easily be achieved within our bank of hours or we can update on a one off service.