Lifecycle guide for OpenSSL from OpenSSL

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

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📅 Last update on 2026-04-10

What is OpenSSL?

Automate product release and end-of-life management

The OpenSSL Project develops and maintains the OpenSSL software - a robust, commercial-grade, full-featured toolkit for general-purpose cryptography and secure communication. The project’s technical decision making is managed by the OpenSSL Technical Committee (OTC) and the project governance is managed by the OpenSSL Management Committee (OMC). The project operates under formal Bylaws.

The entire lifecycle of OpenSSL

The following figure shows you the visualised product life cycle of OpenSSL. 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.

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

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

What is the OpenSSL release strategy?

As of release 3.0.0, the OpenSSL versioning scheme is changing to a more contemporary format: MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH LTS releases will be supported for at least five years and we will specify one at least every four years. Non-LTS releases will be supported for at least two years. During the final year of support, we do not commit to anything other than security fixes. Before that, bug and security fixes will be applied as appropriate.