PHP 8.4 (opt-in)¶

The default erseco/alpine-moodle tags ship PHP 8.3. PHP 8.4 is available as an opt-in image line, published with a -php84 tag suffix, for Moodle 5.x and later.

Why PHP 8.3 is still the default

Moodle 4.5 LTS does not support PHP 8.4, and the unsuffixed tags (latest, main, vX.Y.Z) must keep working for existing 4.x deployments. So the default stays on PHP 8.3 for now, and PHP 8.4 is offered separately as -php84 tags.

Which tag do I pull?¶

Moodle version	Default tag (PHP 8.3)	Opt-in tag (PHP 8.4)
Moodle 4.5.x	`v4.5.x`	(not available)
Moodle 5.0.x	`v5.0.x`	`v5.0.x-php84`
Moodle 5.1.x	`v5.1.x`	`v5.1.x-php84`
Moodle 5.2.x	`v5.2.x`	`v5.2.x-php84`
Moodle 5.3 LTS and later	`v5.3.x`	`v5.3.x-php84` and later

# PHP 8.4 image for Moodle 5.2.1
docker pull erseco/alpine-moodle:v5.2.1-php84
docker pull ghcr.io/erseco/alpine-moodle:v5.2.1-php84

In a docker-compose.yml, just pin the tag:

services:
  moodle:
    image: erseco/alpine-moodle:v5.2.1-php84
    # ...everything else is identical to the PHP 8.3 image

Moodle 4.x is not published on PHP 8.4

There are no -php84 images for the 4.x line. If you run Moodle 4.5 LTS, stay on the default PHP 8.3 tags.

What's different in the PHP 8.4 image?¶

Nothing except the PHP runtime. Same Nginx, same Moosh, same environment variables, same multi-arch targets, same database support (PostgreSQL, MariaDB/MySQL, SQLite). Only the PHP version changes from 8.3 to 8.4.

How these tags are built¶

The -php84 images are built from the php84 branch by a dedicated build-php84.yml workflow.
They never overwrite the existing latest, main, or vX.Y.Z tags.
New Moodle 5.x releases automatically get a matching -php84 tag; the default PHP 8.3 tags are unaffected.

When will PHP 8.4 become the default?¶

The default official tags — including latest — will move to PHP 8.4 once Moodle 5.3 LTS (planned for 5 October 2026) is released and becomes the new LTS baseline. Until then, PHP 8.4 remains opt-in via the -php84 tags.