New project with latest version 3 viable?

Hey Guys,

I am currently considering strapi as API-Backend for a medium-size customer-project. (multiple loadbalanced strapi containers, shared DB, shared S3 File-Storage, possible need for two different DB-Connections)
Up to this point me and my colleagues have only looked into some v4 features and we still fear problems that might occur that we can’t handle as well as we could handle customer-requirements with strapi v3.

So if I am not in need of the features of v4 is it a viable option to just use the latest v3 version for such a customer-project?

Cheers,
Olaf

Anybody else maybe want provide his thoughts to this question?

Most likely somebody who is also using strapi for multiple customer projects.

Why would you want to use V3 over V4? V4 has so many new features and also comes with security updates? Why not upgrade?

All the features you require are definitely doable in V4 - not sure about V3 since I no longer use that. I use Amazon S3 for file storage and works great. I can even pull different image sizes for mobile optimization.

Both Heroku and AWS offer load balancing but is a lot easier on Heroku simply by adding another dyno (server instance). Strapi is also starting it’s own hosting services but not sure what that will look like. Strapi also allows for multiple DB connections: see here.

I suggest launching another staging server on Heroku with the customer’s app on it and updating to latest version to see if it works for you.

Thanks for your response @dmurphy779.
(The article you linked also says that strapi (itself) dropped the support for multiple dbs. However @DMehaffy provided a solution for how to still being able to connect to multiple dbs in v4)

Status Quo:
We currently have x projects done in v3.
We also have a team of y members that are used to work with strapi in v3.

→ Updating all existing projects to v4 is a risk we don’t want to take (yet).

v4 in a new project would mean:

  • We can’t refactor and use existing solutions that easy.
  • The whole team needs to learn v4 (after they just have got used to v3).

So is it - from a technical / security standpoint - still viable to stay on v3 for about ~1 year?

Well, I’m still new to Strapi. I’ve built a few apps so far on V4 but I still have lots to learn. I will say, the longer you put off V4, the harder it will be to migrate as your current apps will likely grow. But you could definitely keep your apps on V3 as long as your dependencies / environment don’t need to be updated.

We will drop support for v3 Dec 31st 2022 and I believe that is our final extension. Originally when we launched v4 it was scheduled to be EOL in July then we extended to Sept and finally to Dec but AFAIK Dec will be the last.

Our cloud will be a PaaS, much like Heroku to be honest but specifically dedicated to Strapi itself and will most likely bake in our EE features as part of the cloud cost with no additional license needed.

Some of that is TBD but it is at least confirmed to be a PaaS