What’s new in Laravel 12: features and updates
Writer :By: Admin
Laravel 12 introduces changes to frontend scaffolding, background processing and database identifiers. This release replaces the Breeze and Jetstream kits, adds asynchronous caching and moves model UUIDs to the time-ordered v7 specification.
This article details these updates for technical leads and developers. We will examine the practical effects of each change, the problems they solve and the new trade-offs they present when planning an upgrade or a new build.
New starter kits
### React, Vue and Livewire Laravel 12 replaces the previous Breeze and Jetstream packages with three distinct starter kits. Each comes pre-configured with authentication routes and components for login, registration and password resets. The React kit uses Inertia 2 and React 19 with TypeScript and shadcn/ui components. The Vue kit uses a similar stack built on Vue 3. The Livewire kit provides a PHP-centric reactive frontend with Livewire 3 and Flux UI components.
### WorkOS AuthKit variant Each starter kit is also available in a variant that integrates WorkOS AuthKit. This provides an alternative authentication system that supports social logins, passkeys and SAML-based Single Sign-On (SSO) out of the box. The trade-off is adding a dependency on a third-party service, which is free for up to one million monthly active users.
Performance and database changes
Several updates focus on improving performance, though each comes with its own considerations.
### Asynchronous caching Cache operations can now be configured to run in the background. For a user request, this reduces latency by writing to the cache after sending the response. This is useful for non-critical data where immediate consistency is not required. The cost is a brief window where a subsequent request might receive stale data before the cache write completes.
### xxHash implementation Laravel 12 uses the xxHash algorithm for internal hashing tasks, replacing MD5. As a faster hashing algorithm, this can produce a minor performance improvement in functions that rely on it, such as generating e-tags or some caching operations. This is an internal change with no required code modification, but its performance impact will be application-specific.
### UUID v7 for models The `HasUuids` trait now generates UUID v7 identifiers by default, instead of UUID v4. Because UUID v7 is time-based, new records are naturally ordered. This improves database indexing and query performance for lookups sorted by creation time. The main consideration is for systems that have a hard dependency on the random structure of UUID v4 or when migrating data that uses a different UUID version.
### Native MariaDB support The framework now includes native command-line support for MariaDB. When you run Artisan commands like `db:dump`, Laravel will use `mariadb-dump` if available. This improves compatibility and reliability for projects using MariaDB-specific features that are not present in the standard MySQL client.
Adopting UUID v7 is not just a performance tweak. It changes how you should think about database indexing for time-series data.
Upgrading considerations
The Laravel team's goal is to limit breaking changes between major versions. While many applications may upgrade smoothly, you should always perform a thorough review of the official upgrade guide and conduct a full regression test.
For example, the `Collection::range` method now accepts a `step` parameter. This is a feature addition, but custom macros or code that relied on the previous method signature might need adjustment.
If you are planning a Laravel upgrade or starting a new build, our development teams in Ahmedabad and Ontario can help you evaluate these new features. We build custom web applications using PHP and can provide dedicated remote developers to support your project. You can review our eleven client case studies to see examples of our work.
