I’d like to kindly ask for clarification on the current support strategy around LTS and ESR releases.
At present, the SuiteCRM LTS download page still points to 7.10.33, but the link is broken. Meanwhile, SuiteCRM 7.14 is being maintained as an ESR. This raises some important questions for those of us planning for stability:
Is ESR now effectively the new LTS, or will there still be a separate LTS in the future?
If there will be a new LTS, will existing 7.10.33 LTS users get a patch or supported upgrade path to move forward?
If ESR has replaced LTS, can we consider it safe for long-term production deployments?
Since SuiteCRM is relied on in production by organizations that value stability, it would be extremely helpful to have clear guidance on the roadmap. Right now, without explicit communication, it is hard to confidently plan upgrades.
This is asked in a positive, collaborative spirit — SuiteCRM has been an excellent open-source solution, and more clarity here would really strengthen community confidence.
Thank you very much for your time and for the amazing work you do.
Extended Support Releases (ESR) for the SuiteCRM Project going forward
SuiteCRM 7.15 will be released in October 2025 and will be an extended support release, extending the life of 7.x for at least another 2 years. This will provide our clients, community, and partners extra time to plan for the transition to SuiteCRM 8.
Plans for the first SuiteCRM 8 ESR are still in the works. Otherwise, we will be continuing with our plans for smaller feature releases to be published more often to help drive development forward.
I believe the term LTS is no longer being used, now they call it ESR.
I personally have no doubts that people using v7.x should be upgrading to the latest v7.14 and then 7.15.
And the upgrade to v8 must be prepared well in advance, 2 years is not that much time for big critical projects with lots of custom work…
Thank you for your thoughtful replies. The clarification about ESR taking the place of LTS is very helpful, and the details around the upcoming 7.15 ESR release give much-needed visibility for planning.
As a small follow-up, what would be most valuable right now for those still running 7.10.33 is a concise, consistent reference for moving forward. Since the old LTS material has been retired, even a short “official” outline covering the safe path from 7.10.33 to 7.14 ESR (and then to 7.15 when available) would make a big difference for administrators planning their upgrades.
This doesn’t need to be extensive—just a simple one-page style note highlighting the expected steps and considerations would help avoid repeated forum questions and keep the whole community aligned.
Thank you again for the clarity and for continuing to support SuiteCRM so actively.
it is not specifically what you ask for, but I believe it is still useful for planning,
Then there is the issue of the steps in upgrading; what I would do if I had that challenge would definitely be to set up a cloned environment in a VM, and try the upgrades step by step (always making snapshots along the way) and verifying everything.
This would allow me to write down my process and then I could replay it in the production server.