Mendix 11 modernizes Studio Pro from the ground up – a React-first client, a rebuilt web-technology UI across its editors and panes, a modernized version-control experience, faster and leaner performance, and a far richer extensibility surface. This is the day-to-day environment you model, debug, and ship in, and in the 11.12 LTS it is both quicker and more capable than any prior release.
The React client by default
React is the default client for every new app. New projects are built on the React client instead of Dojo, and the experience is tightly integrated with the IDE: JavaScript action and widget errors surface directly in Studio Pro, and errors are logged when a page fails because of a corrupted widget bundle. A single batch operation converts unsupported Dojo widgets – Data Grid, Dynamic Image, Static Image, Drop Down, Reference Selector, Reference Set Selector, and Input Reference Set Selector – to their React equivalents without losing their configuration.
- A faster client bundler. Rspack is available as a bundler option for React client apps, completing the client bundling step up to six times faster while using up to 70% less memory. Rollup remains the fully supported default, and the bundler choice (Rspack or Rollup) is stored as a property in App Settings rather than as a file in the project directory, keeping configuration and version control clean.
A better version-control experience
Git has been the version-control standard for Mendix since Mendix 10, so this is not about the plumbing – it is the much-improved in-IDE experience around it that is new in Mendix 11.
A non-blocking History pane. Version-control history opens in a searchable pane rather than a blocking dialog, so you can browse commits and open changed documents at the same time. It filters by commit message, author, date, and revision hash, shows document-type icons, displays remote revisions pushed to the same branch that you have not yet pulled, shows the Mendix version in the details, and lets you copy values directly. Author names are shown (with the email on hover). You can right-click a commit to revert it, and you can revert to the legacy blocking History window through a Version Control preference.
Comparison and diffing built in. Selecting commits from the History pane opens a Comparison pane that shows the textual modifications between revisions – you can compare any historical revision against the current state, or compare any two revisions directly, with revision hashes shown as clickable links to their commits. Double-clicking a changed property or a modified file shows the textual difference inside Studio Pro, removing the previous need for a third-party diff tool. The comparison view keeps a Stop Comparison button always available, filters changes by status (added, modified, deleted, moved) with filters persisting across sessions, offers sortable columns and a search bar to filter changed documents, and shows a toolbar indicator describing what is being compared.
- Fetch without pulling. A Fetch submenu under the Version Control menu and a Fetch icon in the Changes pane let you check for server-side updates without downloading them, so you can see what peers have pushed before deciding to pull.
- Accurate change tracking. The Changes pane auto-refreshes when files are modified on disk outside Studio Pro, and pre-commit checks ensure generated content is up to date before you commit.
- Version-control operations are guarded against revisions carrying invalid legacy metadata, and merge, rebase, cherry-pick, and revert workflows received numerous stability and usability fixes.
Modernized editors and panes
Studio Pro’s editors and dialogs have been rebuilt on web technology. The Domain Model editor was reimplemented with improved entity visualization, a legend explaining its visual elements, inline recommendations, and a toolbar toggle to switch between the new design and the classic version. The Regular Expression dialog was rebuilt to be feature-equal with its predecessor.
A modernized Console, Debugger, and JavaScript Action editor. The Console panel is now on by default, with multi-selection copy of messages and stack traces, correct sort-order placement of new logs, and the legacy console still available in preferences. The Debugger and Breakpoints panes were modernized with sorting, multi-selection, and keyboard controls (Space to enable/disable, Ctrl+A to select all, Enter to navigate), and the Variables pane keeps expanded nodes visible while you step through the debugger. The JavaScript Action editor is enabled by default, correctly parses multiline import statements, and can be reverted to the legacy editor if needed.
- A modernized App Explorer. The rebuilt App Explorer supports keyboard navigation (Enter to expand or collapse nodes), improved right-click and double-click to open, a unified global error screen with a refresh button and support link, and a long list of navigation, search-reset, auto-scroll, and stability fixes.
- Element selector improvements. The element selector can create new documents and entities inline, offers a Show button to open the selected element, and accepts a parameter to highlight a specific node in the tree.
- The Find Results panel was redesigned with integrated search history so you can switch instantly between past and current results, and Find Advanced groups widgets by platform type and orders them by name.
- Editors received usability tweaks including wider scrollbars, larger expression dialogs that remember a manually resized size, faster repeating-widget rendering in Design mode, and improved access-rule toggles.
Navigation, code understanding, and consistency
Call Hierarchy reveals how your app fits together. This tool shows both incoming and outgoing calls for documents such as microflows, nanoflows, and pages, enabling multi-level exploration of application architecture and dependencies. Find Usages and Show Call Hierarchy have keyboard accelerators in their context menus, and access keys were added to context menus across the domain model, microflow, page, mapping, and workflow editors.
- Smarter consistency checks. The consistency checker detects more page URL conflicts, flags code actions whose filename casing mismatches (which can cause OS-specific and cloud deployment problems), and treats a page-to-microflow URL conflict as a warning rather than a blocking error.
- The Go to dialog orders search results by relevance so the items you want appear higher in the list.
Performance, memory, and local development
Studio Pro is substantially faster and leaner. First-open project loading is 25-40% faster, error and consistency checking is up to six times faster through parallel checks (and manages memory more efficiently), and subsequent local deployments in the same session are up to eight times faster. The Page, Workflow, Microflow, and Domain Model editors were optimized, memory management was improved with App Explorer leaks fixed, and Studio Pro now automatically stops Gradle daemons on exit.
- A faster change-and-run cycle. Local deployment skips Java proxy regeneration for unchanged model elements, system texts hot-reload without a full server restart, custom blob documents support fast reload, and element-selection dialogs open more quickly.
- Faster startup on Windows. Studio Pro can add the app directory to Microsoft Defender exclusions to cut antivirus scanning overhead, and it warns when other third-party antivirus software may impact performance.
- Unhandled exceptions surface as a top-right notification instead of a blocking dialog, and app opening runs partly in the background to open projects faster.
Upgrading and staying current
The Update Assistant helps you move to the latest version safely. Accessible via View > Update Assistant, it is a central place for everything related to updating an app: it scans for usages of outdated or deprecated Java and JavaScript APIs, surfaces all model deprecation warnings, and can review and apply fixes before you upgrade. Standalone CLI tools cover Mendix 10.24 projects, since the Update Assistant is not available in version 10. The Java API also adds forRemoval and since attributes to its deprecation annotations to make removal timelines explicit.
- 11.12 is a Long-Term Support release. It is the first LTS since Mendix 10.24, positioned as a stable, production-ready foundation and the recommended upgrade target from the 10.24 LTS, bundling the full accumulated 11.x feature set with long-term support guarantees.
- Apps must be on Mendix 10.21.0 or above to open in Mendix 11, and projects convert automatically to the MPRv2 storage format on open.
Extensibility and automation
The extensibility framework lets you build deeply into Studio Pro. Scaffolding via npm create @mendix/extension generates the project structure, configuration, and boilerplate with built-in debugging, and a persistent Extension Development Mode setting removes the need to juggle feature flags. Web extensions can drive the UI (modal dialogs, user preferences for theme and language, and notifications), read version control information (system, current branch, last commit), read the current Studio Pro version, define custom document types to store reusable data definitions. Menu items now use a direct action property that is invoked on click.
- Runtime-aware extensions. Extensions can run preview actions, monitor runtime connection status, and read active-configuration constants (including private constants with permission). A Core.addDevelopmentServlet method registers servlets accessible through the admin port locally, and live preview actions call servlets registered this way. Newer extension APIs include a page-creation method (addWidgetsToPageRoot), a permissions-changed event, and a documentAdded event.
- Extensions in CI/CD. Web extensions run headlessly in MxBuild and can raise consistency errors during a build, adding custom consistency checks and code-quality gates to CI/CD.
- Command-line tooling. macOS ships command line tools (mxbuild, mx, mxutil) via symlinks in /usr/local/bin for terminal-based build, package, and model-check automation, and the mx tool can view and delete private values Studio Pro stores locally.
- Marketplace metadata is consolidated into a single widgets-appstore-metadata.json at the project root rather than inside individual widget files.
Cross-platform, localization, and support
Studio Pro runs first-class on macOS and Windows. The macOS build (now named Mendix Studio Pro) includes command line tools and the Mendix Version Selector for opening cloud projects and exports in the correct version, with faster, lower-memory diffing and numerous macOS-specific fixes for context menus, keyboard focus, and startup. Dependencies such as WebView2, OpenJDK, and Gradle install inside the application folder so different Studio Pro versions no longer interfere with each other, and the Version Selector can manually remove versions when a normal uninstall fails.
- Localized interfaces. Japanese, Korean, and Chinese Studio Pro interfaces are generally available (with Brazilian Portuguese in beta), and advanced language import/export using Excel and PO files is built into the UI, preserving context per text usage. App content languages include additions such as Georgian.
- Better support diagnostics. A Contact Support option lives under Help > Support Tools, and Collect Support Information is cancellable, works on macOS, and gathers richer diagnostics including session length, app size, module and document counts, and Defender exclusion status.
- Editor history navigation uses the Back and Forward mouse buttons and arrow keys, the Create New App page supports dark mode, first-time users can open Studio Pro without logging in, and Studio Pro can be opened without selecting an app to reach menus such as Preferences.