Craft CMS Operations

Facts verified as of 2026-07.

Authoritative reference for Craft CMS 5.x development: content modeling, Twig templating, element-query optimization, GraphQL/headless setups, plugin development, and the Craft 4 → 5 migration. Craft is a self-hosted PHP application built on Yii 2, backed by MySQL or PostgreSQL.

Version note (verified against craftcms.com/docs/5.x, 2026-06): Craft 5 is current; Craft 6 exists. The defining Craft 5 change is that Matrix is now an entries-based field — Matrix "blocks" are gone, replaced by nested entries with entry types. Fields are globally reusable across all field layouts. Don't ship Craft 3/4 "Matrix block" guidance.

Craft 5 architecture at a glance