We are very pleased to announce the alpha release of Yii Framework version 2. You can download it from yiiframework.com.

Yii 2 is a complete rewrite of Yii - one of the most popular PHP frameworks. Yii 2 inherits the main spirit behind Yii for being a simple, fast and highly extensible PHP framework. Yii 2 exploits the latest language features available in PHP 5.4 and embraces the best practices found in modern Web application development. For a complete description of the features offered by Yii 2, please check out The Definitive Guide and The Guide of Upgrading from Yii 1.1.

The alpha release of Yii 2 marks a major milestone in the course of Yii 2 development. It means that the code base of Yii 2 has reached a certain degree of stability. If you just start to learn Yii or you do not have a tight project schedule, you may consider using Yii 2. Please do not use Yii 2 in production as we may still introduce significant changes without prior notices.

Over the past two years, we have received tremendous contributions to Yii 2 from our community. We hereby thank every contributor for making this release possible.