We’re excited to announce the arrival of Elgg 6.3.0, the latest stable and recommended release in the 6-series, available for download in the download section! This version went live on September 2, 2025, and it’s packed with enhancements that make building and running Elgg-powered communities smoother than ever.

Whether you’re a site administrator, plugin developer, or theme creator, this update has something for you.

What’s new in 6.3.0?

Elgg follows semantic versioning, so minor (x.y.0) releases like this one focus on adding features, improving performance, and refining the developer experience — all while keeping backwards compatibility within the same major line.

You can read the full release notes on Github, but here’s what stands out in this release:

Features and improvements:

• Smarter forms: The fieldsservice can now pre-populate help text when translations are available, and you can prioritize form fields more easily. That means better user guidance and cleaner UI control for plugin developers.

• More flexible notifications: Notification preferences now only include enabled options, making configuration less cluttered. A new helper function, elgg_notify_user(), streamlines sending notifications, and attachments can now be handled directly from the notification event system.

• Subscribable entities: Developers can now make entities subscribable, opening the door for easier subscription-based workflows in plugins and custom features.

• Performance wins: The sidebar comments block now tries to preload container data, cutting down on extra queries and improving render performance in busy discussions.

Bug fixes and refinements:

• CLI logging now provides clearer feedback, making command-line tasks more transparent.

• Relationships now correctly set the relationship ID during the event sequence, fixing subtle logic errors.

• Output processing via elgg_strip_tags() avoids unintended content concatenation.

• CSS and layout fixes ensure horizontal field labels render properly in all fieldset alignments.

Deprecations — time to modernize:

• Direct usage of the ElggObject class is now deprecated — update your entities to use an extension of this class

• The 'type_subtype_pair' query option and legacy date filter keys in elgg_get_* functions now trigger notices.

• The old elgg_dump() debug helper is deprecated; use elgg_log() instead.

These changes won’t break existing sites immediately, but they’re signals to update your code ahead of future major versions.

Why upgrade?

Stability: This is the newest tested and recommended 6-series release.
Support: New releases receive active support, fixes, and attention.
Future readiness: Staying current keeps you on a smooth path toward future 6.x updates.

Upgrade tips:

• Check plugin compatibility. Most plugins will keep working, but always test them against 6.3.0 first.

• Use Composer. Composer is the easiest and safest way to upgrade. Update your composer.json, run the update, and let Composer handle dependencies.

• Read the upgrade notes. The Upgrade Notes detail any edge cases from 6.2 to 6.3.

• Backup first. Always back up your database and files before upgrading, and if possible, test the upgrade in a staging environment.

In summary:

Elgg 6.3.0 makes the platform more capable, more polished, and easier to develop for — without breaking the things you rely on. It’s the recommended version for anyone running an Elgg 6-based site today.

Upgrade when you can, and enjoy a smoother, more future-proof community platform.