Remi's RPM Repository Ships PHP 8.4.27RC1 and 8.5.12RC1 for Fedora and RHEL-Based Distros
Remi Collet's testing repositories now carry Release Candidate builds of PHP 8.4.27 and PHP 8.5.12, and he'd rather you keep them out of production. Posted to his blog today, the RC packages give Fedora and Enterprise Linux users a way to stress-test the upcoming releases before they go gold.
Here's what actually ships, and why it might matter if you run PHP on RPM-based Linux.
What an RC buys you
A release candidate is basically the ship version in disguise. No new features get added once an RC drops; only bug fixes and security patches make it in afterward. In Remi's words, "RC version is usually the same as the final version (no change accepted after RC, exception for security fix)." Test the RC and you've basically seen the thing.
That's the whole appeal. Fedora ships a single fixed PHP version on its own schedule, and enterprise distros are even slower to move. If you want to validate a Laravel app or a custom extension against what's coming next, Remi's testing repo is the easiest way to do it without waiting for the distro to catch up.
You get two paths in. Base packages — plain php, php-cli, php-fpm — ride the remi-modular-test stream and replace the system PHP. Software Collections are the ones Remi actually recommends for testing: php84 and php85 install in parallel, leaving the OS's own PHP alone. It's the "perfect solution for such tests," as he puts it.
Getting it running
Both versions ship for x86_64 and aarch64, so AMD, Intel, and ARM box owners are covered. PHP 8.5.12RC1 is the flagship here. It lands in remi-modular-test for Fedora 43, 44, and 45 plus Enterprise Linux 8 and newer, and as the php85 SCL in remi-test. It's even in Fedora rawhide already, tagged "for QA."
The 8.4.27RC1 is in the same spots, just as php84. Keep in mind PHP 8.3 is now in security-only mode, so don't expect more RCs for it. And because Remi tracks the whole active matrix, PHP 8.6.0RC3 is already in there too.
On the upstream side, the php.qa announcements line up: Daniel Scherzer posted 8.5.12RC1 Friday at 00:59 UTC, with Calvin Buckley handling 8.4.27RC1 the day before. Both point at an expected final date of October 22, 2026, roughly two weeks out. Both warn, pretty bluntly, not to run this in production.
If you're going the SCL route, enable the remi-test stream and install php85 or php84 in parallel with whatever the system already has. Switch the whole box to a version instead? You run dnf module switch-to php:remi-8.5, then update the php packages through the modular-test repo.
That's the boring but reliable part of the setup. Rather than guess at distro-specific commands, there's a wizard that walks you through it step by step.
One detail worth a look: the build environment. Remi lists exactly what each set of RPMs was compiled against, which matters if you hit dependency headaches. EL-10 builds use RHEL 10.2 with EPEL 10.2, EL-9 rides RHEL 9.8 plus EPEL 9, and EL-8 is built on RHEL 8.10 and EPEL 8. Extensions carry their own wants too. oci8 pulls in Oracle's Instant Client 23.26, and intl uses libicu 74.2.
PHP 8.5.0 went GA on November 20, 2025, bringing the usual headline toys: a new URI extension, a pipe operator, Clone With, the #[\NoDiscard] attribute, and closures in constant expressions. This 8.5.12 RC is just the next bug-fix step in that line. PHP 8.4, shipped back in November 2024, keeps chugging through its monthly maintenance releases.
The takeaway? Nothing ships today in a production sense. These are test builds, and the finals land around October 22. Remi's repo has been the go-to for running multiple PHP versions on RPM distros for over two decades, clocking roughly 300,000 downloads a day. If you maintain anything on PHP, grab the RC from Remi's testing repo and log issues at the php-src GitHub before then.
Head here to Remi's blog post for full details.
