How active is Grav?

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Hi, recent Grav user here. I’m wondering how active the development and support for Grav is. Looking at the blog, I see an announcement of 1.8Beta in november last year. Looking at the github page, there does not seem to be a lot of activity (14 commits since januari this year) and many pull requests still open. So should I worry about the future existence of Grav?

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@mke21,

So should I worry about the future existence of Grav?

Whether you should worry or not is very much a personal decision…

Factors that might influence your decision:

  • Grav originates from 2014 and is IMHO quite mature and stable. It mostly only needs occasional fixes.
    (That’s being said by someone who loves the lean and mean aspect of Grav and doesn’t have much more to wish for.)
  • Release 1.8 isn’t much about new features, but more about compatibility with PHP 8.4. and breaking changes in libraries.
    The release date of 1.8 depends on the amount of feedback. The more users test 1.8-beta and provide feedback, the sooner it will be released.
  • The team used to consist of 3 people, but 2 had to withdraw due to personal situations.
    That means everything (1.8 development, issue handling, bug fixing, PR handling) is on the shoulders of a single lead developer…
    • who also has other projects to take care of
    • and also needs to make money somehow.
  • How important is the longevity of Grav for you, and/or your clients?
  • Do you expect/require swift support to your issues/questions, or can it wait?
  • etc.

Hope this helps…

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Thanks, that helps indeed.

For us it’s not about the features. Like you we gravitate to Grav because of being simple and not too bloated.
Important is the support of newer PHP versions etc. We now use a system that can only run on php5, which becomes harder to keep in the air every year.
Having only one developer is a concern. No backup for the developer might be a problem on the longer term. It’s a major problem in the opensource world I learned. I’ve been a sole maintainer of certain opensource packages myself in the past, so I know how it goes.
I do not expect swift support, being pretty much capable myself. Fixing compatibillity (see php) and security issues are my concerns.

Having said that, where can I find info about contributing to 1.8-beta? If we stick with grav, I think it’s only fair to give something back to the team/developer.

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@mke21,

where can I find info about contributing to 1.8-beta?

There is not really any documentation on contributing. You can contribute:

  • by sponsoring, which is only fair when you make money with Grav yourself.
  • by creating PRs
    • And be patient and appreciate Andy’s time constraints… :slight_smile:
      Rest assured your contribution will be appreciated.
  • let your code speak for your coding skills.
  • respond to open issues when you feel confident.
  • add code reviews to themes, plugins and PRs submitted by the community
    Andy just hasn’t got the time to review submissions himself and leaves reviewing community code to the community.
  • when you become more visible to Andy, your might get more privileges on the repos.
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For me the most important part would be php8 compatibility. So I guess starting to test 1.8beta would be the most important thing to do now?

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@mke21, Grav 1.7.48 supports up to PHP 8.3.x, but does not support PHP 8.4.

Use Grav 1.8-beta for PHP 8.4 and above.

(I’ve updated my post above to clarify that Grav 1.8-beta is about PHP 8.4 compatibility and not PHP 8 in general)

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