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Version Support Policy

Learn about the support for Kong Ingress Controller software versions.

Version support for Kong Ingress Controller

Kong primarily follows semantic versioning (SemVer) for its products.

At Kong’s discretion a specific minor version can be marked as a LTS version. The LTS version is supported on a given distribution for the duration of the distribution’s lifecycle, or for 3 years from LTS release whichever comes sooner. LTS only receives security fixes or certain critical patches at the discretion of Kong. Kong guarantees that at any given time, there will be at least 1 active LTS Kong version.

LTS versions of Kong Ingress Controller are supported for 3 years after release. Standard versions are supported for 1 year after release.

Supported versions

Kubernetes Version	OpenShift Version	Upstream K8s EOL	Supported Kong Gateway Versions	Recommended KIC Version	EOL
1.17	4.4	Dec 2020	2.8 LTS	2.5 LTS	March 2025
1.18	4.5	June 2021	2.8 LTS	2.5 LTS	March 2025
1.19	4.6	Oct 2021	2.8 LTS	2.5 LTS	March 2025
1.20	4.7	Feb 2022	2.8 LTS	2.5 LTS	March 2025
1.21	4.8	June 2022	2.8 LTS	2.5 LTS	March 2025
1.22	4.8	Oct 2022	2.8 LTS, 3.x	2.5 LTS	Sept 2023
1.23	4.8	Feb 2023	2.8 LTS, 3.x	2.11.x	Sept 2023
1.24	4.8	July 2023	2.8 LTS, 3.x	2.11.x	Sept 2023
1.25	N/A	Oct 2023	2.8 LTS, 3.x	2.11.x	Sept 2023
1.26	N/A	Feb 2024	2.8 LTS, 3.x	2.11.x	Sept 2023
1.27	N/A	Jun 2024	2.8 LTS, 3.x	2.11.x	Sept 2023

Kong Ingress Controller versions

Version	Released Date	End of Full Support	End of Sunset Support
2.11.x	2023-08-09	2024-08-09	2025-08-09
2.10.x	2023-06-02	2024-06-02	2025-06-02
2.9.x	2023-03-09	2024-03-09	2025-03-09
2.8.x	2022-12-19	2023-12-19	2024-12-19
2.7.x	2022-09-27	2023-09-27	2024-09-27
2.6.x	2022-09-15	2023-09-15	2024-09-15
2.5.x	2022-07-11	2023-07-11	2024-07-11
2.4.x	2022-06-15	2023-06-15	2024-06-15
2.3.x	2022-04-05	2023-04-05	2024-04-05
2.2.x	2022-02-04	2023-02-04	2024-02-04
2.1.x	2022-01-05	2023-01-05	2024-01-05
2.0.x	2021-10-07	2022-10-07	2023-10-07
1.3.x	2021-05-27	2022-05-27	2024-05-27
1.2.x	2021-03-24	2022-03-24	2024-03-24
1.1.x	2020-12-09	2021-12-09	2023-12-09
1.0.x	2020-10-05	2021-10-05	2023-10-05
0.x.x	2018-06-02	2019-06-02	2020-06-02

Table 1: Version Support for Kong Ingress Controller

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 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 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 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.

Additional terms

The above is a summary only and is qualified by Kong’s Support and Maintenance Policy.
The above applies to Kong standard software builds only.