25 years of TYPO3: The community celebrates its anniversary with the release of the latest version 12 LTS

Eighteen months of community work lie behind the more than 140 developers who have invested time, heart, and soul in TYPO3’s best major release to date. Those installing the version with the official number 12.4 can look forward to up to six years of official support as well as numerous new features and improvements. Extended Long Term Support (ELTS) is guaranteed up to April 30th, 2029.

Olivier Dobberkau, President of the TYPO3 Association, says about the release: "First of all, I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to this fantastic new version. Without our community we wouldn’t be where we are today! In version 12, I’m personally most excited about the integration of webhooks – this creates yet another whole new set of possible applications for TYPO3."

The best TYPO3 version ever: The features

TYPO3 v12 seamlessly continues the already improved functionalities for users and editors that had become a strong focus for the Core team since the release of the previous version. These include simplified backend handling and a modern user interface. Integrators and developers will be pleased to see real process optimizations in their day-to-day work. 

The most important new features include:

• Webhooks and Reactions, which allow external systems to communicate and exchange information with TYPO3. These webhooks can be used to integrate TYPO3 into a deployment or data pipeline, or to connect any third-party systems to TYPO3 even more comfortably – for a seamless system landscape.
• The CKEditor has been updated to the latest version and now offers even more rich text editing features for editors. 
• The backend modules for TypoScript and Page TSconfig have been improved to provide more options for integrators and simplify day-to-day work with the system. 
• Under the hood, many improvements have also been made, including the integration of a message bus and a message queue, as well as support for PHP 8.1 and 8.2. 
• Support for new TCA types and revisions to the Extbase programming framework for developers.

A detailed technical look with more information can be found at docs.typo3.org. An article about the highlights and features of the new TYPO3 major version can be found here: https://typo3.org/article/typo3-v12-lts-here-to-save-the-day.

A community unleashes its power

Experts from various fields and in the official TYPO3 teams have contributed to the result, partly on a voluntary basis. 3.250 Git commits and a total of 216 new features are symbolic of this. The community achievement is underlined with the version-accompanying campaign. From the very first sprint release (v12.0 in October 2022), "Release your Power" told the story of a superhero journey, in which the Heroes Ty Power, Threeternia, and Sudden Dev symbolize that the multifaceted challenges of the web can only be mastered with the joint efforts of everyone involved. 

Luisa Faßbender, TYPO3 Marketing Team Lead, was responsible for the campaign and says: "The entire, cross-release campaign symbolizes the adaptability and strength of our beloved CMS. For the first time in the long history of updates, we have created our own comic strip for the TYPO3 community. The story in it is meant to show that we can only tackle the current tasks we are facing together and as a unit. Ideally, readers will end up feeling empowered to call themselves a "TYPO3 hero:in" and will be able to identify with one of the heroes portrayed."

TYPO3 Conference in Düsseldorf in October 2023

The launch of the latest TYPO3 major version will be framed by celebrations surrounding the 25th anniversary of the open source CMS, which was first released by Kasper Skårhøj in 1998. This makes TYPO3 one of the few content management systems that can already look back on a rich history and has detailed market knowledge. TYPO3 continues to enjoy a huge, active developer community, which continuously develops, optimizes, and adapts the CMS to new market needs.

Daniel Fau, interim CEO of TYPO3 GmbH, says: "From the seclusion of our home offices, we literally opened the gates to our community again with the celebration at the "Home of TYPO3". In the anniversary year and beyond, these will not be closed again – completely in the spirit of Open Source. Regardless of whether it is participation in the project or the rediscovery of networking in the heroic framework of the TYPO3 Conference in October 2023."

About the TYPO3 Association and TYPO3 GmbH

The TYPO3 Association coordinates and promotes the long-term and sustainable development of the TYPO3 Open Source Content Management System and is the owner of the TYPO3 trademark. It is a non-profit organization that provides software to the public free of charge. The TYPO3 Association is a registered association under Swiss law, founded by the members of the TYPO3 community in November 2004. The head office is located in Baar in the canton of Zug in Switzerland. The TYPO3 Association is non-partisan and non-denominational. More information about members, goals and sponsorship opportunities can be found at typo3.org/project/association.