# 🎊 ChurchCRM 7.0.0 β€” A Decade of Service > *Ten years. Thousands of churches. One mission.* Released: February 2026 Β· Built on trust since 2015 --- ChurchCRM turns **10 this year**. What started in 2015 as a community-driven project to give churches a free, open-source management tool has grown into a platform serving congregations in **44 languages across six continents**. Version 7.0.0 is our most ambitious release yet β€” a major leap forward in extensibility, privacy, security, and global reach. Thank you to every contributor, translator, and congregation that made this decade possible. This one's for you. πŸ™ --- > ⚠️ **BEFORE YOU UPGRADE β€” PHP 8.4 IS REQUIRED** > > ChurchCRM 7.0.0 **will not run on PHP 8.3 or earlier**. If your hosting environment has not been upgraded to PHP 8.4, **do not start the upgrade** β€” your site will break. > > **Steps to take before upgrading ChurchCRM:** > 1. Log into your hosting control panel (cPanel, Plesk, etc.) > 2. Switch your PHP version to **8.4** or later > 3. Confirm your site still loads on the current version > 4. Then proceed with the ChurchCRM 7.0.0 upgrade > > If you manage your own server, update PHP via your package manager first. Contact your hosting provider if you are unsure how to change your PHP version. > > Additionally: plugin configurations (MailChimp, Vonage, OpenLP, etc.) will need to be re-entered in the new Plugin Manager after upgrade, as integration settings have moved to the plugin architecture. --- ## 🧩 A New Way to Extend ChurchCRM β€” The Plugin System The headline feature of 7.0.0 is a brand-new **WordPress-style plugin architecture** that transforms how ChurchCRM integrates with external services. Previously, integrations like MailChimp, Vonage SMS, and OpenLP were baked into the core application β€” hard to disable, harder to update. Now they live as first-class plugins with a clean, consistent interface: - **Enable or disable** any integration without touching core code - **Test your connection** before saving β€” a new *Test Connection* button validates credentials live - **Password fields are masked** in settings to protect sensitive credentials from screen sharing - **Reset to defaults** in one click when something goes wrong - **Inject custom content** into page headers or footers via plugin hooks **Plugins included in 7.0.0:** | Plugin | What it does | |--------|-------------| | πŸ“§ MailChimp | Sync your congregation with your email list | | πŸ“± Vonage SMS | Send SMS alerts directly from ChurchCRM | | πŸ–₯️ OpenLP | Control your presentation software from ChurchCRM | | πŸ”’ Gravatar | Profile photos pulled automatically by email | | πŸ“Š Google Analytics | Track usage with your own GA account | | ☁️ External Backup (WebDAV) | Cloud backups to Nextcloud, ownCloud, or any WebDAV server | | πŸ”— Custom Menu Links | Add your own links to the navigation sidebar | The plugin system is designed to grow β€” future integrations will be plugins from day one. --- ## πŸ—ΊοΈ Maps Without Google β€” Free & Private by Default ChurchCRM has replaced its dependency on Google Maps with **Leaflet.js**, the leading open-source mapping library. This change affects every map in the system: family location maps, congregation density views, and address lookups. **What changed for you:** - **No Google Maps API key required** β€” set up maps with zero configuration - **No API billing** β€” your church's family data is never sent to Google for rendering - **Get Directions deep-link** β€” every family and person view now has a one-click *Get Directions* button that opens the user's preferred maps app (Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze, etc.) - **Bing Maps removed** β€” Bing Maps was retired in June 2025; all references have been cleaned up --- ## πŸ›‘οΈ Security β€” Hardened for 2026 This release patches several important vulnerabilities discovered during our ongoing security audit: - **Stored XSS fixed in Person Property Management** β€” a crafted property value could execute script in an admin's browser. Fixed and covered by automated tests. - **XSS fixed in person-list filter dropdowns** β€” injected markup in search filter values is now properly escaped. - **Open redirect vulnerability fixed** β€” the `linkBack` URL parameter now validates that redirects stay within ChurchCRM. External redirect attempts are blocked and logged. - **Plugin settings no longer leak credentials** β€” all password/API-key fields render as `type="password"` in the plugin settings UI. *All three XSS fixes are backed by new Cypress security test suites that will catch regressions in CI.* --- ## 🌍 44 Languages β€” Translations Powered by Community & AI ChurchCRM 7.0.0 ships with support for **44 languages**, from Afrikaans to Vietnamese, with active translations maintained by our POEditor community. New in this release: - **Browser locale detection** β€” ChurchCRM now detects your browser's preferred language on first visit and suggests switching if a better match is available (dismissible, version-aware) - **AI-assisted translation workflow** β€” the development team has introduced an AI translation pipeline for missing terms, with human review by denomination-aware contributors before publication - **DataTables fully localized** β€” the new DataTables v2 upgrade properly applies locale to all interactive tables Languages with recent translation updates include: Spanish (ES/AR/MX/CO/SV), French, Portuguese (BR/PT), German, Chinese (Simplified/Traditional), Italian, Russian, Ukrainian, Korean, Japanese, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Romanian, Indonesian, and more. --- ## βš™οΈ Under the Hood β€” Platform Modernization ### PHP 8.4 Required ChurchCRM 7.0.0 requires **PHP 8.4 or later**. This enables use of modern PHP features for safety and performance. If you are on PHP 8.3, please upgrade your hosting environment before updating. ### Two-Factor Authentication Improvements - QR code library upgraded to **endroid/qr-code v6** with improved generation quality - 2FA enrollment and management UX fully modernized - Google 2FA library updated to **pragmarx/google2fa v9.0** - 2FA enable/require flags are now managed directly from the Users page β€” no separate system setting needed ### UI Consistency: Complete Bootstrap 4 / AdminLTE 3 Migration Every remaining page that still used Bootstrap 3 or AdminLTE 2 classes has been updated. ChurchCRM now runs **100% on Bootstrap 4.6.2 and AdminLTE 3** throughout β€” consistent styling, correct responsive behavior, and no mixed-framework surprises. ### DataTables v2 Interactive tables across the application have been upgraded to **DataTables v2.x**, with the Bootstrap 4 renderer properly initialized and all locale integration corrected. ### Logging Overhaul - **Monolog upgraded to v3.10** β€” production-ready structured logging with improved performance - Log retention reduced from 30 days to **3 days** to prevent disk fill on small servers - Logger no longer blocks application startup if the log directory is misconfigured ### PHPMailer v7 Email delivery now runs on **PHPMailer v7.0.2**, the latest stable release with security and compatibility improvements. ### Perpl ORM (Propel Fork) ChurchCRM has migrated from the unmaintained Propel ORM to **Perpl ORM**, an actively maintained community fork that keeps the same API while receiving ongoing bug fixes and PHP 8.4 compatibility updates. ### Server Compatibility - URL rewrite detection now correctly identifies **Apache, nginx, LiteSpeed, and shared hosting** environments β€” fixing installation issues on non-Apache stacks - Subdirectory installations work more reliably across all server types ### Build Tooling - Migrated from **ESLint + Prettier to Biome** for unified, faster JS/TS linting and formatting - **Node.js 24 LTS** is now the required runtime for building assets - **Uppy photo uploader** upgraded to v5.2.0 --- ## πŸ—‘οΈ Removed in 7.0.0 | Removed | Replacement | |---------|-------------| | Google Maps API render key | Leaflet.js (no key needed) | | Bing Maps provider | Leaflet.js (Bing retired June 2025) | | `bootstrap-toggle` library | Native Bootstrap 4 custom switches | | `sCSVExportDelimiter` setting | Removed (unused) | | `bAllowPrereleaseUpgrade` setting | Controlled from the Upgrade page directly | | Custom Menu Links (core) | Custom Menu Links plugin | | MailChimp (core) | MailChimp plugin | | Vonage SMS (core) | Vonage plugin | | OpenLP (core) | OpenLP plugin | --- ## 🎁 Looking Ahead Ten years in, ChurchCRM is more active than ever. The plugin system opens the door to a growing ecosystem of community-built integrations. The maps overhaul is the beginning of a broader privacy-by-default initiative. And our localization pipeline β€” now AI-assisted and human-reviewed β€” will help us close the remaining translation gaps across all 44 languages. Whether your congregation has 50 members or 5,000, whether you're in Seoul or SΓ£o Paulo or Nairobi β€” ChurchCRM is built for you. *Here's to the next ten years.* 🎊 --- **Full Changelog**: https://github.com/ChurchCRM/CRM/compare/6.8.1...7.0.0