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Kong Gateway Enterprise Version Support

Kong primarily follows semantic versioning (SemVer) with its products, with an added segment for Kong Gateway Enterprise patch releases. Products follow a pattern of {MAJOR}.{MINOR}.{PATCH}.{ENTERPRISE_PATCH}. The ENTERPRISE_PATCH segment identifies a sub-patch based on the Kong Community Gateway.

Semantic Versioning

For the purposes of this support document:

Release versioning

Major Version means a version identified by the number to the left of the leftmost decimal point (X.y.z.a). For example, 2.1.3.0 indicates Major Version 2 and 1.3.0.4 indicates Major Version 1.
Minor Version means a version identified by a change in the number in between the two leftmost decimal points (x.Y.z.a). For example, 2.1.3.0 indicates Minor Version 1 and 1.3.0.4 indicates Minor Version 3.

Patches

Community Edition Patch means a patch identified by a change in the number to the left of the rightmost decimal point (x.y.Z.a). For example, Community/OSS version 2.8.3 indicates Release Version 2.8 with patch number 3 and 3.3.0 indicates Release version 3.0 with Patch number 0.
Enterprise Patch Version means a version identified by a change in the number to the right of the rightmost decimal point (x.y.z.A). For example, 2.8.3.0 indicates Enterprise Release version 2.8 with Patch Version 3.0 and 3.3.2.1 indicates Enterprise Release Version 3.3 with patch number 2.1

Kong introduces major functionality and breaking changes by releasing a new major version. Major version releases happen rarely and are usually in response to changes in major industry trends, significant architectural changes or significant internal product innovation. There is no regular release cadence of major versions.

Kong aims to release a new minor version every 10 weeks. Minor versions contain features and bug fixes. Minor versions are backwards compatible within that major version sequence. Every minor version is supported for a period of 1 year from date of release. This is done by releasing patches that apply to each supported minor version. Customers are encouraged to keep their installations up to date by applying the patches appropriate to their installed version. All patches released by Kong are roll-up patches (for example, patch 1.5 for release version 3.3 includes all the fixes in patches 1.4, 1.3, 1.2, and 1.1).

Kong may designate a specific minor version as a Long-Term Support (LTS) version. Kong provides technical support for the LTS version on a given distribution for the duration of the distribution’s lifecycle, or for 3 years from LTS version release, whichever comes sooner. An LTS version is backwards compatible within its major version sequence. An LTS version receives all security fixes. Additionally, an LTS version may receive certain non-security patches at Kong’s discretion. At any time, there will be at least 1 active LTS Kong Gateway Enterprise version.

Sunset support

After the product hits the end of the support period, Kong will provide limited support to help the customer upgrade to a fully supported version of Kong Gateway Enterprise for up to an additional 12 month sunset period. Kong will not provide patches for software covered by this sunset period. If there is an issue that requires a patch during this period, the customer will need to upgrade to a newer Kong Gateway Enterprise version covered by active support.

Bug fix guidelines

Unfortunately, all software is susceptible to bugs. Kong seeks to remedy bugs through a structured protocol as follows:

Serious security vulnerabilities are treated with the utmost priority. See here for our security vulnerability reporting and remedy process, including how to report a vulnerability.
Bugs which result in production outages of Kong Gateway Enterprise or effective non-operation (such as catastrophic performance degradation) will be remedied through high priority bug fixes and provided in patch releases to the Latest Major/Minor Version Release of all currently supported Major Versions of the software and optionally ported to other versions at Kong’s discretion based on the severity and impact of the bug.
Bugs which prevent the upgrade of a supported version of Kong Gateway Enterprise to a more recent supported version will be remedied through high priority bug fixes and provided in the Latest Major/Minor Version Release of all currently supported Major Versions of the software and optionally ported to other versions at Kong’s discretion based on the severity and impact of the bug.
Other bugs as well as feature requests will be assessed for severity and fixes or enhancements applied to versions of Kong Gateway Enterprise at Kong’s discretion depending on the impact of the bug. Typically, these types of fixes and enhancements will only be applied to the most recent Minor Version in the most recent Major Version.

Customers with platinum or higher subscriptions may request fixes outside of the above and Kong will assess them at its sole discretion.

Supported versions

Kong supports the following versions of Kong Gateway Enterprise:

3.2

3.1

3.0

2.8 LTS

Kong Gateway 3.2 supports the following deployment targets until February 2024, unless otherwise noted by an earlier OS vendor end of life (EOL) date.

OS	Version	ARM support	FIPS compliant	AWS Graviton support	EOL
Alpine	3	✅	❌	✅	February 2024
Amazon Linux	2	✅	❌	✅	February 2024
Amazon Linux	2023	✅	❌	✅	February 2024
Debian	10	❌	❌	❌	February 2024
Debian	11	❌	❌	❌	February 2024
RHEL	7.x	❌	❌	❌	February 2024
RHEL	8.x	❌	✅	❌	February 2024
Ubuntu	18.04	❌	❌	❌	April 2023
Ubuntu	20.04	❌	✅	❌	February 2024
Ubuntu	22.04	✅	✅	✅	February 2024

Kong Gateway 3.1 supports the following deployment targets until December 2023, unless otherwise noted by an earlier OS vendor end of life (EOL) date.

OS	Version	ARM support	FIPS compliant	AWS Graviton support	EOL
Alpine	3	❌	❌	❌	December 2023
RHEL	7.x	❌	❌	❌	December 2023
RHEL	8.x	❌	✅	❌	December 2023
Amazon Linux	2	❌	❌	❌	December 2023
Amazon Linux	2023	❌	❌	❌	December 2023
Debian	10	❌	❌	❌	December 2023
Debian	11	❌	❌	❌	December 2023
Ubuntu	18.04	❌	❌	❌	April 2023
Ubuntu	20.04	❌	✅	❌	December 2023
Ubuntu	22.04	❌	✅	❌	December 2023

Kong Gateway 3.0 supports the following deployment targets until September 2023, unless otherwise noted by an earlier OS vendor end of life (EOL) date.

OS	Version	ARM support	FIPS compliant	AWS Graviton support	EOL
Alpine	3	❌	❌	❌	September 2023
RHEL	7.x	❌	❌	❌	September 2023
RHEL	8.x	❌	✅	❌	September 2023
Amazon Linux	2	❌	❌	❌	September 2023
Amazon Linux	2023	❌	❌	❌	September 2023
Debian	10	❌	❌	❌	September 2023
Debian	11	❌	❌	❌	September 2023
Ubuntu	18.04	❌	❌	❌	April 2023
Ubuntu	20.04	❌	✅	❌	September 2023
Ubuntu	22.04	❌	✅	❌	September 2023

Kong Gateway 2.8 LTS supports the following deployment targets until March 2025, unless otherwise noted by an earlier OS vendor end of life (EOL) date.

OS	Version	ARM support	FIPS compliant	AWS Graviton support	EOL
Alpine	3	❌	❌	❌	March 2025
RHEL	7.x	❌	❌	❌	June 2024
RHEL	8.x	❌	❌	❌	March 2025
Amazon Linux	2	❌	❌	❌	March 2025
CentOS	7	❌	❌	❌	June 2024
CentOS	8	❌	❌	❌	December 2021
Debian	10	❌	❌	❌	June 2024
Debian	11	❌	❌	❌	March 2025
Ubuntu	18.04	❌	❌	❌	April 2023
Ubuntu	20.04	❌	❌	❌	March 2025
Ubuntu	22.04	❌	❌	❌	March 2025

Older versions

These versions have reached the end of full support.

Version	Released Date	End of Full Support	End of Sunset Support
2.7.x.x	2021-12-16	2023-02-24	2024-08-24
2.6.x.x	2021-10-14	2023-02-24	2024-08-24
2.5.x.x	2021-08-03	2022-08-24	2023-08-24
2.4.x.x	2021-05-18	2022-08-24	2023-08-24
2.3.x.x	2021-02-11	2022-08-24	2023-08-24
2.2.x.x	2020-11-17	2022-08-24	2023-08-24
2.1.x.x	2020-08-25	2022-08-24	2023-08-24
1.5.x.x	2020-04-10	2021-04-09	2022-04-09
1.3.x.x	2019-11-05	2020-11-04	2021-11-04
0.36	2019-08-05	2020-08-04	2021-08-04
0.35	2019-05-16	2020-05-15	2020-11-15
0.34	2018-11-19	2019-11-18	2020-11-18
0.33	2018-07-11	2019-06-10	2020-06-10
0.32	2018-05-22	2019-05-21	2020-05-21
0.31	2018-03-13	2019-03-12	2020-03-12
0.30	2018-01-22	2019-01-21	2020-01-21