Redirects in Craft CMS without a plugin

Craft CMS now handles redirects natively in config/redirects.php so if you only have a handful of redirects you could add them in there and avoid a plugin.

If you have a few more, you could add a Redirects channel and update your redirects.php with something like this:

<?php

use craft\elements\Entry;

function getRedirects(): array
{
    $entries = Entry::find()
        ->section('redirects')
        ->status('enabled')
        ->cache(3600)
        ->all();

    return array_map(static function (Entry $entry): array {
        return [
            'from' => trim((string) $entry->originalPath, '/'),
            'to' => trim((string) $entry->newPath, '/'),
            'caseSensitive' => true,
            'statusCode' => (int) ($entry->statusCode->value ?? 301),
        ];
    }, $entries);
}

return getRedirects();

Where a plugin like Retour becomes useful is if you're wanting additional functionality like short URLs, automatically adding redirects when entries rename, or want to monitor 404s to catch them.

But in 2026, it may not be necessary to reach for a plugin straight away for something Craft basically does for free.

(For what it's worth, when we need it, we still use Retour)