Announcing the Strapi 5 Beta

Since we first announced our plans for Strapi 5, thousands of people have joined the waitlist and shared their interest in trying it out. We’re very grateful for your support and encouragement.

It's been a labor of love, packed with late nights, endless coding sessions, and more cups of coffee than we care to admit. But we believe it's all worth it to bring you the most powerful, flexible, and user-friendly version of Strapi yet.

But here's the thing—our journey isn't over. We're at a crucial stage where your involvement is key!

We need your keen eyes, your unique projects, and, yes, your bug reports. Why? Because together, we can polish Strapi 5 to perfection. As an open-source community, our strength lies in our collaboration, our shared passion for development, and our commitment to making Strapi not just better but the best it can be.

Whether you're a long-time Strapi enthusiast or just diving into the world of headless CMSs, your feedback and contributions during this Beta phase are invaluable. So, let's roll up our sleeves, dive into the code together, and make Strapi 5 the most robust and community-driven release ever.

A Few Ground Rules

Before you jump into action, here are a few essential things to keep in mind:

⚠️ This is a Beta: The Strapi 5 beta is meant for testing and exploration purposes only. So, we advise starting new projects for testing rather than migrating your existing v4 projects. It's all about understanding what’s coming, not moving house just yet!

🐞 Report, Report, Report: Found a bug? Have a suggestion? Your feedback is the gold we need to mine. Every new GitHub issue opened is a step towards making Strapi 5 more robust and stable.

📣 Community First: Remember, you’re not alone in this. You’re part of a vibrant community of developers, creators, and innovators. Share your discoveries, ask questions, and let’s make Strapi 5 the best it can be, together.

The Strapi 5 Beta comes jam-packed with new features for you to try out and test. Here are some of the improvements to Strapi that we’re excited about.

Safely draft content

Introducing a user-friendly interface with separate tabs for Draft and Published content, along with the ability to save and publish in one action. Reduce the risk of publishing errors and streamline collaboration. This new capability introduces the concept of documents and profoundly integrates with our Content Internationalization and Review Workflow features. Either you want to (un)publish a document in a specific locale or all of them, we got you covered. Whatever your publication strategy is, Strapi 5 offers the highest flexibility in terms of publication for your team. All of this, for free and available to anyone.

Quicker build times

Say hi to quicker build times and better performance. For developers tired of slow builds and complex setups with tools like Webpack, Vite is a game-changer. It's designed with smart defaults to save you from the headache of detailed configurations. Plus, it supports TypeScript straight out of the box and uses esbuild to speed up development times massively. This means projects start up 3 times faster in development mode and the final build is 14% lighter. If you want quicker build times and a smoother development process, Vite is worth checking out.

Easy plugin creation

The Plugin CLI simplifies and accelerates creating, managing, and customizing Strapi plugins. It offers a suite of intuitive commands that streamline the entire development cycle. With the new Plugin CLI, each plugin will be fully independent. The CLI will provide new commands to allow each plugin to be built, developed, and so on:

• plugin:build – Build your plugin
• plugin:watch – Watch your plugin for changes and rebuild
• plugin:verify - Verify that your plugin is valid e.g. dependencies and package.json are correct
• plugin:watch:link – Link your plugin to a Strapi app that is not local to the plugin

Simple API overhead & response

Experience the power of simplicity with Strapi 5’s updated API format. We listened to your feedback and wanted to use Strapi 5 as an opportunity to improve the Developer Experience for any developers interacting with the Content API. This new format is designed to be cleaner and more intuitive, making your interactions effortless. It reduces response sizes, ensuring faster, more efficient data handling. Specifically, we've removed the ‘attributes’ property to provide a format closely aligned with the Strapi 3 format, demonstrating our commitment to simplicity without sacrificing functionality.

Furthermore, we've enhanced our platform to better serve our community's needs. Understanding the importance of flexibility and ease of use, we've ensured that our GraphQL support is now fully compatible with popular GraphQL clients such as Relay. By listening to community feedback, we've made these adjustments not only to improve compatibility but also to provide a more streamlined experience across different versions of Strapi.

Additionally, we recognize the challenges associated with migrating to new software versions. To address this, we've ensured support for both the new and old formats simultaneously. This dual-format compatibility means you can upgrade to Strapi 5 without having to rewrite all your GraphQL queries. This also applies to the REST API, but with some exceptions that you'll need to update for Strapi 5. You must use the “documentId” when you switch. Also, you'll switch from using “publicationState” to “status” for filtering. These changes are part of our efforts to make the API better and easier to use, based on user feedback and new improvements.

While we encourage migrating to the new format to take full advantage of the latest improvements, we understand the necessity of providing flexibility during the transition period. Rest assured, the Strapi 4 format will remain supported until the next major version release, giving your team ample time to plan and execute the transition at a pace that suits your project's needs.

By integrating these changes, Strapi 5 improves upon the existing framework and we are excited for you to experience these enhancements.

How to contribute

The capabilities outlined above are available in public beta for any Strapi user. To start using these capabilities, simply create a new fresh Strapi 5 project using the public beta.

1. Jumpstart your Strapi 5 adventure with a simple command:

npx create-strapi-app@beta beta --quickstart

2. Head over to GitHub to report any issues you may find:

Strapi is using GitHub issues to manage bugs. We keep a close eye on them. Before filing a new issue, try to ensure your problem does not already exist.

3. Before submitting an issue you need to make sure:

• You are experiencing a technical issue with the Strapi 5 beta.
• You have already searched for related issues and found none open (if you found a related closed issue, please link to it from your post).
• Your issue title is concise, on-topic, and polite.
• Make sure your issue body is readable and well formatted.
• You provide steps to reproduce the issue.

During the beta phase, we intend to gradually roll out additional enhancements, including native support for Content History as well as 100% TypeScript support. Stay tuned!

The public beta follows a thorough testing period, but if you encounter any issues, we’d love to get your feedback. We welcome your feedback about how you’re using Strapi, any specific workflows you’re having problems with or any ideas on what you’d like to see Strapi do. Give it a try and let us know what you think on Discord.

Try Strapi 5 now

PS: Host a Strapi 5 Release Party: Call for Partners

As Strapi 5 is about to launch, we're looking for partners to host release parties worldwide. This is a golden opportunity to engage with the developer community, showcase your expertise, and celebrate the latest in headless CMS technology.

What's in it for You?

• A Strapi 5 party kit, including a presentation deck, a demo starter kit, exclusive swag, and promotional support.
• Financial support for food and drinks.
• Feature your event on Strapi's social media, newsletter, and website.

Get Involved

We’re eager to support your efforts in bringing the community together for learning, networking, and celebration. No matter where you're located or your experience with organizing events, we're here to help make your meetup a success.

Interested in hosting? Reach out to Mark Raymond at mark.raymond@strapi.io and let’s make the Strapi 5 release a global celebration.