Release Schedule and Maintenance Policy

Updated August 28, 2024

Release Schedule

For more information on the changes planned for each release, please see the Project Roadmap

Note: We have not added a major release to the 2024 schedule yet. If/when we add one, it will replace a minor release in the 2.x line. See below for criteria for a major releases.

Release Number First RC Generated (release window opens) Latest Possible Release Date (release window closes) Release Manager Tracking Issue
2.12.0 February 6th, 2024 February 20th, 2024 Prudhvi Godithi 4115
1.3.15 Feb 27 2024 March 05 2024 Jeff Lu 4294
2.13.0 March 19th, 2024 April 2nd, 2024 Sayali Gaikawad 4433
1.3.16 April 16th, 2024 April 23rd, 2024 Zelin Hao 4531
2.14.0 April 30th, 2024 May 14th, 2024 Rishabh Singh 4562
1.3.17 May 28th, 2024 June 06th, 2024 Divya Madala 4659
2.15.0 June 10th 11th, 2024 June 25th, 2024 Peter Zhu 4681
1.3.18 July 09th, 2024 July 16th, 2024 Zelin Hao 4763
2.16.0 July 23rd, 2024 August 06th 07th 2024 Prudhvi Godithi 4771
1.3.19 Aug 20th, 2024 August 27th, 2024 Brandon Shien 4888
2.17.0 September 04th 05th, 2024 September 17th, 2024 Sayali Gaikawad 4908
2.17.1 September 24th, 2024 October 1st, 2024 Divya Madala 5046
2.18.0 October 22nd, 2024 November 05th, 2024 Rishabh Singh 5004
1.3.20 December 03rd, 2024 December 10th, 2024 Brandon Shien 4990
2.19.0 January 28th, 2025 Feb 11th, 2025    

OpenSearch follows semver, which means we will only release breaking changes in major versions. All minor versions are compatible with every other minor version for that major. For example, 1.2.0 will work with 1.3.2, 1.4.1, etc, but may not work with 2.0.

For minor version releases, OpenSearch follows “release window” model as described in our releasing documentation. The goal is to release a new minor version approximately every six weeks which includes all the new features and fixes that are ready to go. Once we enter a release window, every day we will generate a release candidate. When the exit criteria are met by a release candidate, we will make an announcement, update the release date column above and publish new artifacts on that date.

Note: If we cannot pass the exit criteria by 2 weeks after the start of the release cycle window (1 week for 1.x patch releases), we will cancel the minor release and hold changes until the next release window.

In contrast, OpenSearch releases new major versions only when there are a critical mass of breaking changes (e.g. changes that are incompatible with existing APIs). These tend to be tied to Lucene major version releases, and will be announced in the forums at least 4 weeks prior to the release date.

Both the roadmap and the release dates reflect intentions rather than firm commitments and may change as we learn more or encounters unexpected issues. If dates do need to change, we will be as transparent as possible, and log all changes in the changelog at the bottom of this page.

Maintenance Policy

For OpenSearch and other software in the OpenSearch project, new features and active development always takes place against the newest version. The OpenSearch project follows the semantic versioning specification for assigning version numbers to releases, so you should be able to upgrade to the latest minor version of that same major version of the software without encountering incompatible changes (e.g., 1.1.0 → 1.3.x).

Sometimes an incompatible change is unavoidable. When this happens, the software’s maintainers will increment the major version number (e.g., increment from OpenSearch 1.3.z to OpenSearch 2.0.0). The last minor version of the previous major version of the software will then enter a maintenance window (e.g., 1.3.x). During the maintenance window, the software will continue to receive bug fixes and security patches, but no new features.

We follow OpenSSF’s best practices for patching publicly known vulnerabilities and we make sure that there are no unpatched vulnerabilities of medium or higher severity that have been publicly known for more than 60 days in our actively maintained versions.

The duration of the maintenance window will vary from product to product and release to release. By default, versions will remain under maintenance until the next major version enters maintenance, or 1 year passes, whichever is longer. Therefore, at any given time, the current major version and previous major version will both be supported, as well as older major versions that have been in maintenance for less than 12 months. Please note that, maintenance windows are influenced by the support schedules for dependencies the software includes, community input, the scope of the changes introduced by the new version, and estimates for the effort required to continue maintenance of the previous version.

The software maintainers will not back-port fixes or features to versions outside of the maintenance window. That said, PRs with said back-ports are welcome and will follow the project’s review process. No new releases will result from these changes, but interested parties can create their own distribution from the updated source after the PRs are merged.

Major Version Latest Minor Version Status Initial Release Maintenance Window Start Maintenance Window End
1 1.3.19 Maintenance July 12, 2021 May 26, 2022 GA release of 3.0.
2 2.18.0 Current May 26, 2022 N/A N/A

*Note that the length of the maintenance window is an estimated minimum and the project may, at its discretion, extend it to a later date

Release History

Release Number Release Date Release Manager Tracking Issue
2.18.0 November 5th, 2024 Rishabh Singh 5004
2.17.1 October 1st, 2024 Divya Madala & Peter Zhu 5046
2.17.0 September 17th, 2024 Sayali Gaikawad 4908
1.3.19 August 27th, 2024 Brandon Shien 4888
2.16.0 August 07th 2024 Prudhvi Godithi 4771
1.3.18 July 16th, 2024 Zelin Hao 4763
2.15.0 June 25th, 2024 Peter Zhu 4681
1.3.17 June 06th, 2024 Divya Madala 4659
2.14.0 May 14th, 2024 Rishabh Singh 4562
1.3.16 April 23rd, 2024 Zelin Hao 4531
2.13.0 April 2nd, 2024 Sayali Gaikawad 4433
1.3.15 March 05th 2024 Jeff Lu 4294
2.12.0 February 20th 2024 Prudhvi Godithi 4115
1.3.14 December 12th 2023 Zelin Hao 4069
2.11.1 November 30th, 2023 Divya Madala 4161
2.11.0 October 16th, 2023 Rishabh Singh & Peter Zhu 3998
1.3.13 September 21st Zelin Hao 3878
2.10.0 September 25th Prudhvi Godithi 3777
1.3.11 June 29th, 2023 Jeff Lu 3630
2.9.0 July 24th, 2023 Prudhvi Godithi 3762
2.8.0 June 6th, 2023 Rishabh Singh & Peter Zhu 3434
1.3.10 May 11th, 2023 Prudhvi Godithi & Peter Zhu 3331
2.7.0 April 17th, 2023 Peter Zhu & Zelin Hao 3230
1.3.9 March 9th, 2023 Jeff Lu 3195
2.6.0 February 28th, 2023 Sayali Gaikawad 3081
1.3.8 February 2nd, 2023 Rishabh Singh & Divya Madala 3012
2.5.0 January 24th, 2023 Rishabh Singh, Peter Zhu & Zelin Hao 2908
1.3.7 December 13th, 2022 Peter Zhu & Rishabh Singh 2742
2.4.0 November 15th, 2022 Peter Zhu 2649
1.3.6 October 6th, 2022 Zelin Hao 2650
2.3.0 September 14th, 2022 Sayali Gaikawad 2447
2.2.1 September 1st, 2022 Prudhvi Godithi 2481
1.3.5 September 1st, 2022 Prudhvi Godithi 2348
2.2.0 August 11th, 2022 Peter Zhu 2271
1.3.4 July 14th, 2022 Zelin Hao 2205
2.1.0 July 7th, 2022 Sayali Gaikawad 1818
2.0.1 June 16th, 2022 Zelin Hao & Peter Zhu 2165
1.3.3 June 09th, 2022 Prudhvi Godithi & Peter Zhu 2101
2.0.0 May 26th, 2022 Peter Zhu 2086
1.3.2 May 5th, 2022 Zelin Hao 1882
2.0.0-rc1 May 3rd, 2022 Peter Zhu & Zelin Hao 1624
1.3.1 March 30th, 2022 Abhinav Gupta 1885
1.3.0 March 17th, 2022 Zelin Hao & Peter Zhu 889
1.2.4 January 18th, 2022 Abhinav Gupta & Peter Zhu 1417
1.2.3 December 22th, 2021 Peter Zhu & Peter Nied 1365
1.2.0 November 23th, 2021 Sayali Gaikawad, Peter Zhu & Peter Nied 567
1.1.0 October 05th, 2021 Peter Zhu 564
1.0.1 September 01, 2021 Abhinav Gupta 151
1.0.0 July 12th, 2021 Peter Zhu & Sayali Gaikawad 85
1.0.0-rc1 June 7th, 2021 Peter Zhu, Sayali Gaikawad & Sreekar Jami 48

Change Log

Date Change Reason
July 1st, 2022   Initial Version
October 20th, 2022 Increased time between 2.5 code freeze and release 7 days is standard, and there were only 2 days for 2.5
October 20th,2022 Added Initial 2023 schedule Current schedule was running out
January 13th, 2023 Update to 2.5.0 release date Maps team found last minute issue, moving to accommodate resolution
January 19th, 2023 Update to 2.5.0 release date Docs team due diligence, moving to accommodate
April 26th, 2023 Update to 2.7.0 release date Found CVE to resolve, fix issues found in regression tests
July 17th, 2023 Update to 2.9.0 release date No-Go on the release meeting call - build issues
July 20th, 2023 Update to 2.9.0 release date No-Go on the release meeting call - build issues
August 14th, 2023 Updated release table to reflect release windows per adoption of https://github.com/opensearch-project/project-website/pull/1866
September 5th, 2023 Updated 2.10 date Original release date was too close to US Labor Day Holiday
September 6th, 2023 Updated 2.10 date 8 hour github outage last night - moving to accomodate a few final fixes
September 11th, 2023 Link to RELEASING.md updated link from proposal to releasing documentation
September 29th, 2023 Updated 2.11 date Per discussion in this issue
January 4th, 2024 Updated 2.12 date Per discussion in this issue
February 2nd, 2024 Enhancement Added Release Manager & Tracking issue for each release back through 2023 to add clarity for the community. Reversed release history - latest is at the top
February 15th, 2024 Updated 2024 release schedule Per Proposal - 186
February 21st, 2024 Update release manager for 1.3.15 release 1.3.15 release issue
April 26th, 2024 Update release manager for 1.3.16 release 1.3.16 release issue
August 28th, 2024 Update release history from February to August 2024 Update page
September 3rd, 2024 Update release history from 2021 to 2023 Update page
September 4th, 2024 Update release candidate generation date for 2.17.0 Too many last minute PRs causing CI build issues
October 25th, 2024 Update release history for 2.17.1 release and current progress of release 2.18.0 Update page
November 19th, 2024 Update release history for 2.18.0 release and updated release manager for 1.3.20 1.3.20 release issue