# Electron Releases

Electron frequently releases major versions alongside every other Chromium release.
This document focuses on the release cadence and version support policy.
For a more in-depth guide on our git branches and how Electron uses semantic versions,
check out our [Electron Versioning](./electron-versioning.md) doc.

## Timeline

| Electron | Alpha | Beta | Stable | EOL | Chrome | Node | Supported |
| ------- | ----- | ------- | ------ | ------ | ---- | ---- | ---- |
| 28.0.0 |  2023-Oct-11 | 2023-Nov-6 | 2023-Dec-5 | TBD | M120 | TBD | ✅ |
| 27.0.0 |  2023-Aug-17 | 2023-Sep-13 | 2023-Oct-10 | 2024-Apr-16 | M118 | v18.17 | ✅ |
| 26.0.0 | 2023-Jun-01 | 2023-Jun-27 | 2023-Aug-15 | 2024-Feb-27 | M116 | v18.16 | ✅ |
| 25.0.0 | 2023-Apr-10 | 2023-May-02 | 2023-May-30 | 2024-Jan-02 | M114 | v18.15 | ✅ |
| 24.0.0 | 2023-Feb-09 | 2023-Mar-07 | 2023-Apr-04 | 2023-Oct-10 | M112 | v18.14 | 🚫 |
| 23.0.0 | 2022-Dec-01 | 2023-Jan-10 | 2023-Feb-07 | 2023-Aug-15 | M110 | v18.12 | 🚫 |
| 22.0.0 | 2022-Sep-29 | 2022-Oct-25 | 2022-Nov-29 | 2023-Oct-10 | M108 | v16.17 | 🚫 |
| 21.0.0 | 2022-Aug-04 | 2022-Aug-30 | 2022-Sep-27 | 2023-Apr-04 | M106 | v16.16 | 🚫 |
| 20.0.0 | 2022-May-26 | 2022-Jun-21 | 2022-Aug-02 | 2023-Feb-07 | M104 | v16.15 | 🚫 |
| 19.0.0 | 2022-Mar-31 | 2022-Apr-26 | 2022-May-24 | 2022-Nov-29 | M102 | v16.14 | 🚫 |
| 18.0.0 | 2022-Feb-03 | 2022-Mar-03 | 2022-Mar-29 | 2022-Sep-27 | M100 | v16.13 | 🚫 |
| 17.0.0 | 2021-Nov-18 | 2022-Jan-06 | 2022-Feb-01 | 2022-Aug-02 | M98 | v16.13 | 🚫 |
| 16.0.0 | 2021-Sep-23 | 2021-Oct-20 | 2021-Nov-16 | 2022-May-24 | M96 | v16.9 | 🚫 |
| 15.0.0 | 2021-Jul-20 | 2021-Sep-01 | 2021-Sep-21 | 2022-May-24 | M94 | v16.5 | 🚫 |
| 14.0.0 | -- | 2021-May-27 | 2021-Aug-31 | 2022-Mar-29 | M93 | v14.17 | 🚫 |
| 13.0.0 | -- | 2021-Mar-04 | 2021-May-25 | 2022-Feb-01 | M91 | v14.16 | 🚫 |
| 12.0.0 | -- | 2020-Nov-19 | 2021-Mar-02 | 2021-Nov-16 | M89 | v14.16 | 🚫 |
| 11.0.0 | -- | 2020-Aug-27 | 2020-Nov-17 | 2021-Aug-31 | M87 | v12.18 | 🚫 |
| 10.0.0 | -- | 2020-May-21 | 2020-Aug-25 | 2021-May-25 | M85 | v12.16 | 🚫 |
| 9.0.0 | -- | 2020-Feb-06 | 2020-May-19 | 2021-Mar-02 | M83 | v12.14 | 🚫 |
| 8.0.0 | -- | 2019-Oct-24 | 2020-Feb-04 | 2020-Nov-17 | M80 | v12.13 | 🚫 |
| 7.0.0 | -- | 2019-Aug-01 | 2019-Oct-22 | 2020-Aug-25 | M78 | v12.8 | 🚫 |
| 6.0.0 | -- | 2019-Apr-25 | 2019-Jul-30 | 2020-May-19 | M76 | v12.14.0 | 🚫 |
| 5.0.0 | -- | 2019-Jan-22 | 2019-Apr-23 | 2020-Feb-04 | M73 | v12.0 | 🚫 |
| 4.0.0 | -- | 2018-Oct-11 | 2018-Dec-20 | 2019-Oct-22 | M69 | v10.11 | 🚫 |
| 3.0.0 | -- | 2018-Jun-21 | 2018-Sep-18 | 2019-Jul-30 | M66 | v10.2 | 🚫 |
| 2.0.0 | -- | 2018-Feb-21 | 2018-May-01 | 2019-Apr-23 | M61 | v8.9 | 🚫 |

**Notes:**

* The `-alpha.1`, `-beta.1`, and `stable` dates are our solid release dates.
* We strive for weekly alpha/beta releases, but we often release more than scheduled.
* All dates are our goals but there may be reasons for adjusting the stable deadline, such as security bugs.

**Historical changes:**

* Since Electron 5, Electron has been publicizing its release dates ([see blog post](https://www.electronjs.org/blog/electron-5-0-timeline)).
* Since Electron 6, Electron major versions have been targeting every other Chromium major version. Each Electron stable should happen on the same day as Chrome stable ([see blog post](https://www.electronjs.org/blog/12-week-cadence)).
* Since Electron 16, Electron has been releasing major versions on an 8-week cadence in accordance to Chrome's change to a 4-week release cadence ([see blog post](https://www.electronjs.org/blog/8-week-cadence)).

## Version support policy

:::info

The Electron team will temporarily support Electron 22 until October 10, 2023.
This extended support is intended to help Electron developers who still need
support for Windows 7/8/8.1, which ended support in Electron 23. The October
support date follows the extended support dates from both Chromium and Microsoft.
On October 11, the Electron team will drop support back to the latest three
stable major versions.

:::

The latest three _stable_ major versions are supported by the Electron team.
For example, if the latest release is 6.1.x, then the 5.0.x as well
as the 4.2.x series are supported. We only support the latest minor release
for each stable release series. This means that in the case of a security fix,
6.1.x will receive the fix, but we will not release a new version of 6.0.x.

The latest stable release unilaterally receives all fixes from `main`,
and the version prior to that receives the vast majority of those fixes
as time and bandwidth warrants. The oldest supported release line will receive
only security fixes directly.

### Chromium version support

:::info Chromium release schedule

Chromium's public release schedule is [here](https://chromiumdash.appspot.com/schedule).

:::

Electron targets Chromium even-number versions, releasing every 8 weeks in concert
with Chromium's 4-week release schedule. For example, Electron 26 uses Chromium 116, while Electron 27 uses Chromium 118.

### Node.js version support

Electron upgrades its `main` branch to even-number versions of Node.js when they enter Active LTS. The schedule
is as follows:

<img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nodejs/Release/main/schedule.svg?sanitize=true" alt="Releases">

As a rule, stable branches of Electron do not receive Node.js upgrades after they have been cut.
If Electron has recently updated its `main` branch to a new major version of Node.js, the next stable
branch to be cut will be released with the new version.

Patch upgrades of Node that contain significant security or bug fixes, and are submitted
more than 2 weeks prior to a stable release date, will be accepted into an Electron alpha
or beta release branch.

Minor upgrades of Node that contain significant security or bug fixes, and are submitted
more than 2 weeks prior to a stable release date may be accepted into an Electron alpha or
beta release branch on a case-by-case basis. These requests will be reviewed and voted on
by the [Releases Working Group](https://github.com/electron/governance/tree/main/wg-releases),
to ensure minimal disruption for developers who may be consuming alpha or beta releases.

### Breaking API changes

When an API is changed or removed in a way that breaks existing functionality, the
previous functionality will be supported for a minimum of two major versions when
possible before being removed. For example, if a function takes three arguments,
and that number is reduced to two in major version 10, the three-argument version would
continue to work until, at minimum, major version 12. Past the minimum two-version
threshold, we will attempt to support backwards compatibility beyond two versions
until the maintainers feel the maintenance burden is too high to continue doing so.

### End-of-life

When a release branch reaches the end of its support cycle, the series
will be deprecated in NPM and a final end-of-support release will be
made. This release will add a warning to inform that an unsupported
version of Electron is in use.

These steps are to help app developers learn when a branch they're
using becomes unsupported, but without being excessively intrusive
to end users.

If an application has exceptional circumstances and needs to stay
on an unsupported series of Electron, developers can silence the
end-of-support warning by omitting the final release from the app's
`package.json` `devDependencies`. For example, since the 1-6-x series
ended with an end-of-support 1.6.18 release, developers could choose
to stay in the 1-6-x series without warnings with `devDependency` of
`"electron": 1.6.0 - 1.6.17`.
