Lifecycle guide for MySQL from Red Hat

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

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📅 Last update on 2026-05-07

What is MySQL?

Automate product release and end-of-life management

MySQL is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius"s daughter, and "SQL", the abbreviation for Structured Query Language. A relational database organizes data into one or more data tables in which data types may be related to each other; these relations help structure the data. SQL is a language programmers use to create, modify and extract data from the relational database, as well as control user access to the database. In addition to relational databases and SQL, an RDBMS like MySQL works with an operating system to implement a relational database in a computer"s storage system, manages users, allows for network access and facilitates testing database integrity and creation of backups.

The entire lifecycle of MySQL

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

MySQL (Red Hat) release, version and end-of-life information

Figure: Release, patch and end-of-life cycle of product MySQL (Red Hat)

What is the MySQL release strategy?

MySQL transitioning to the new MySQL versioning model with our upcoming versions. MySQL database version 8.1.0 will be our first Innovation release, and 8.0.34+ will transition to only bug fixes until 8.0 End-Of-Life (EOL) scheduled for April-2026. Approximately one year from now, MySQL version 8.x will eventually become LTS which will provide ample time for users to migrate from 8.0.x to the 8.x LTS version. LTS Releases will follow the Oracle Lifetime Support Policy, which includes 5 years of premier and 3 years of extended support. Innovation releases will be supported until the next major & minor release.