Lifecycle guide for NGINX from NGINX

All releases, patches, maintenance and support periods at a glance

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📅 Last update on 2026-04-17

What is NGINX?

Automate product release and end-of-life management

NGINX is open source software for web serving, reverse proxying, caching, load balancing, media streaming, and more. It started out as a web server designed for maximum performance and stability. In addition to its HTTP server capabilities, NGINX can also function as a proxy server for email (IMAP, POP3, and SMTP) and a reverse proxy and load balancer for HTTP, TCP, and UDP servers.

The entire lifecycle of NGINX

The following figure shows you the visualised product life cycle of NGINX. You can see all releases with the latest patch version, the long-term support characteristics (orange flag in the green circle, the periods for version provision, maintenance and support.

NGINX (NGINX) release, version and end-of-life information

Figure: Release, patch and end-of-life cycle of product NGINX (NGINX)

What is the NGINX release strategy?

Even minor version numbers are always "stable" versions for which only major bug fixes are provided. Odd minor version numbers are always "mainline" versions for which new features, updates and bug fixes are provided. Maintenance ends automatically when a new "stable" or "mainline" version begins.