Contao 6.0.2 swaps TinyMCE for HugeRTE

Why the editor was replaced

TinyMCE changed its licensing model with version 7. It is now available under GPLv2 or later, or under a commercial licence. HugeRTE grew out of that situation as a fork that stays under MIT.

Contao made the switch in 6.0.2. The changelog lists it as pull request 10305. Alongside it, obsolete IP data was dropped from the user objects and old calls to specialchars were cleaned up. The new component is on Packagist as contao-components/hugerte under MIT, while the previous package contao-components/tinymce is LGPL-2.1-or-later and stops at the 6.3 branches.

For clients with a procurement or compliance review, this removes a point of friction. The backend no longer raises the question of a GPL obligation or a paid licence. Whether the change was backported to the LTS lines 5.7 and 5.3 is still open.

What can break during the update

The global JavaScript object is no longer called tinymce. Anything that reaches for it may stop working after the update. That includes custom RTE configurations, additionally loaded plugins, modified skins, overridden templates and extensions that extend the editor.

A short editorial smoke test belongs directly after the update. Open two or three typical forms and check the link dialogue, image insertion, source view and any custom buttons.

Then take a look at the Composer dependencies. If contao-components/tinymce still shows up after the update, an extension is pulling the package in. The actual work then sits with that extension.

The support dates matter more

Contao 6.0 only appeared on 26 August 2026 and is not an LTS. Active support and security support both end on 14 February 2027. Anyone migrating to 6.0 now has to move on to 6.1 in February 2027. Non-LTS versions get six months of maintenance, LTS versions three years of active support plus one year of security fixes.

Contao 5.7 LTS, released on 18 February 2026, runs with active support until 14 February 2029 and with security fixes until 14 February 2030. For 5.3 LTS, active support also ends on 14 February 2027, with security fixes continuing until 14 February 2028.

Then there is the stack underneath. Contao 6 requires PHP 8.4 plus MySQL 8.0 or an equivalent MariaDB server. On shared hosting and older managed servers, this is often where a migration stalls. Local development environments on the Mac need to be on PHP 8.4 beforehand as well.

On 2 October 2026, the core team noted in the recap of its second meeting that API and MCP features are planned for Contao 6.1 in February 2027. The Contao Summit takes place in Leipzig on 15 and 16 October 2026.

What to do now

For the Contao instances you look after, a simple list with version, PHP version and end of support is enough. Two dates deserve a marker: 14 February 2027 and 14 February 2028.

For new projects we recommend 5.7 LTS as long as there is no budget set aside for the move to 6.1 in February 2027. Every major update needs a database backup and a copy of the files directory, and the migration steps have to run through completely.

• Update Contao 6 installations to 6.0.2 or later and click through the editor afterwards

• Search the Composer dependencies for contao-components/tinymce

• Put the move from 5.3 to 5.7 LTS into the 2027 planning

• Confirm PHP 8.4 availability with the hosting provider before scheduling a version 6 migration

• Read the changelog before moving to 6.0.3 or 6.0.4