Lifecycle guide for WordPress from WordPress Foundation

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

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📅 Last update on 2026-04-16

What is WordPress?

Automate product release and end-of-life management

WordPress is software designed for everyone, emphasizing accessibility, performance, security, and ease of use. We believe great software should work with minimum set up, so you can focus on sharing your story, product, or services freely. The basic WordPress software is simple and predictable so you can easily get started. It also offers powerful features for growth and success.

The entire lifecycle of WordPress

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

WordPress (WordPress Foundation) release, version and end-of-life information

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

What is the WordPress release strategy?

The only current officially supported version is the last major release of WordPress. Previous major releases before this may or may not get security updates as serious exploits are discovered.