fortrabbit blog — Erin Strand

MySQL 8.4 upgrade plan

Erin Strand — Tue, 26 May 2026 11:00:00 GMT

Two ways to upgrade an app on the old fortrabbit platform from MySQL 8.0 to 8.4, now that 8.4 is the default for new apps. MySQL 8.4 is now the default for newly created fortrabbit apps. This guide covers two methods for upgrading your existing (old platform) App before we will retire MySQL 8.0 in June 2026.

The story of our new ENV vars edit experience

Erin Strand — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 08:38:48 GMT

Building an environment variable editor that handles multiline values, special characters and a base64 helper without feeling clever. Editing ENV vars should be easy, right? Here's how we iterated to make it more powerful and developer-friendly, tackling devilish details.

PHP 8.5

Erin Strand — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 10:44:59 GMT

PHP 8.5 is live on both platforms: selectable in the dashboard, default for new apps, and available through the latest setting. We finally rolled out PHP 8.5 and here are the details.

Testing code for PHP 7

Erin Strand — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Run automated compatibility checks against PHP 7.2 before switching a live app, and catch the breaking changes ahead of time. This post helps running automated tests on your code to detect breaking changes before switching the PHP version. It includes instructions on how to use our predefined Docker image with PHPCompatibility.

PHP 7.2 upgrade path

Erin Strand — Wed, 19 Sep 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Security support for PHP 5.6 and 7.0 ends in December 2019. The minimum-effort route to move an app to PHP 7.2 before then. The official security support for PHP 5.6 and PHP 7.0 will end in December 2019. We plan to force-update all Apps on those versions to PHP 7.1 in February 2019. The exact date will be announced. We recommend you to update well before that. Here is how, exactly.