Why should I upgrade my Laravel application?

Three reasons. First, security: older Laravel versions stop receiving security patches after their support window ends, so unpatched CVEs accumulate. Laravel 9 reached end of life in February 2024, Laravel 10 in February 2025. Second, performance: newer Laravel versions ship significant performance improvements, particularly with Octane, Vite, and improved query builder. Third, ecosystem: newer Laravel packages and Composer dependencies require newer Laravel versions, so staying outdated cuts you off from the ecosystem and makes hiring harder.