Laravel Upgrade Checklist: How to Move an Old App Safely

If you're running an older Laravel app, you've probably put off the upgrade because it feels risky: something will break, and nobody is sure what. This Laravel upgrade checklist turns that worry into a plan you can follow, whether the app is a couple of versions behind or still on a very old release. The good news is that upgrades rarely fail because of Laravel itself. They fail because nobody checked the PHP version, the packages, the tests or the deployment plan first. Do those four things well and the upgrade itself is mostly routine.