June 2024 Summaries

It's been three months since we released Directus+, our premium companion subscription for developers building with Directus, offering powerful starter kits designed to help ship projects faster and advanced workshops exclusive to members. We've released a total of seven starter kits covering various use cases such as learning management systems, PIM systems, multi-tenant SaaS applications, video streaming platforms, status pages, onboarding checklist applications, and AI content machines. Members have also enjoyed live workshops on topics like minimum viable billing, database to data engine, and virtual event registration platforms. A new team plan has been introduced for teams, priced at $599 per year including up to 20 developers, and promotional pricing is available until July 1st 2024 when individual plans will increase in cost. The Directus+ offering includes access to starter kits, training, private Discord community channels, and other benefits.

The Directus Marketplace is moving out of beta with several new features and improvements, including enhanced developer experiences for extension authors, sandboxed SDK capabilities, publish best practices, and more granular access to the database and underlying file systems. The marketplace will also introduce new extension types, expand existing extensions, provide a way to augment or enhance existing extensions through a flexible pattern, and improve visibility and quality of extensions. Additionally, the marketplace will be made discoverable outside of individual Directus project instances, and there are plans to validate the quality of extensions published in the Marketplace, as well as firm up the registry for multiple registries to be used inside of a project.

You can now install the brand new Spreadsheet Layout from the Directus Marketplace and start editing your data within Directus Explore, following community feedback which led to its development. This feature is part of Directus Labs, a space for building experiments and gathering feedback, where not all published content will be maintained equally. Directus AI, launched last month, is also part of this initiative, showcasing the platform's ability to support various extensions and integrations. The team aims to ship new features more quickly through Directus Labs, embracing the platform as a super extensible project for users' projects.

Directus TV has expanded its content offerings for developers, introducing new shows and renewals for Summer 2024 to share knowledge on various topics such as theming, authentication, and automation. The platform features a mix of educational and entertaining content, including `Dungeons & Dashboards`, where users build a dungeon master screen in Directus Insights, and `Technically I’m Lost`, which follows a non-technical marketer's journey into the world of code. Additionally, shows like `Authentication Avenue` and `Snake Tamer: Automation Adventures` explore key concepts and applications in Directus, while new series such as `Short Hops`, `Directus Academy`, and `Agency Corner` offer further insights and perspectives on the platform. The expanded content is designed to help developers get more out of their experience with Directus.

Directus 10.12 will receive Extended Security Updates (ESUs) until the end of 2024, offering a flexible upgrade timeframe for users to adopt new features while maintaining security without immediate version updates. The ESUs cover only security vulnerabilities and do not include bug fixes or enhancements. This initiative prioritizes user security and stability, allowing users to plan and manage upgrades with confidence while ensuring their environment remains safeguarded against vulnerabilities.

Directus is announcing its Release Candidate for Directus 11 with the introduction of new key feature Policies, while also providing extended security updates for Directus 10.12 until the end of 2024. Additionally, a new feature called Spreadsheet Layout has been added to Directus Explore as part of the Directus Labs project. The company is also sharing its plans for the Directus Extensions SDK and Marketplace, which were informed by early feedback from the community. Furthermore, Directus TV will be launching new shows this summer covering education, entertainment, and storytelling, and users can register their interest in becoming a Directus Community Expert to share the platform with their audiences. A starter kit has also been released for Directus+, Team Plans, and an introductory offer is ending soon. The company is inviting users to participate in various events, including workshops, panels, community networking, and more, by joining their Discord server.

We are excited to announce the Release Candidate of Directus 11, which marks a significant overhaul in access control management. The new feature, Policies, revolutionizes how roles and users are composed with access control, providing enhanced granularity, reusable permission sets, and flexible assignments. Unlike previous versions, Roles now serve as groupings of policies or organizational units rather than being permissions-based. An automatic migration from Directus 10 to Directus 11 is also available to help users transition to the new feature. The Release Candidate will be available later this week, and we invite users to share their thoughts on the new feature in our Discord channel.

We transitioned from GPL3 to BSL 1.1 license for Directus, making production use free for users with annual finances under $5M, while requiring larger entities to contribute financially. We changed the license to ensure long-term sustainability and stay true to open source values. The decision was made after involving the community through GitHub discussions and Town Hall meetings, gathering suggestions that ultimately led to the chosen solution. The new license allows for custom usage grants, enabling a broader scope of users, including larger companies and governments, to benefit from Directus while maintaining its open-source ethos.

Directus 10.12 introduces custom verification URLs for public user registration, allowing users to bypass the default verification process, and provides new environment variables to control user limits in projects with public registration enabled. Additionally, this release fixes issues related to expiring sessions, which were causing race conditions and locking out users from the Data Studio. The update also includes various small enhancements, bug fixes, and optimizations across the Directus project.