This is a major release that includes a re-architecture of Payload from Express and a single-page React app to Next.js. In addition to this architectural change, we've also shipped a ton of large features, miscellaneous fixes, and DX improvements.

Architectural changes Payload now installs fully in any Next.js app router You can now deploy your entire project (frontend and backend) in one app Payload can now be deployed serverless on platforms like Vercel Everything Payload does now works seamlessly within any Next.js project You can now use the Payload Local API in Server Components and Server Functions Postgres, Live Preview, and Lexical have been marked as stable All Payload exports have been significantly cleaned up and organized Payload is now an ESM project Payload is now modular, and we now publish new packages ui, next, translations, and graphql The Payload config is now server-side only, and works in any Node environment Server-side HMR works out of the box - removing the need for nodemon