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Stages of software availability

Tech preview

A feature that is in tech preview might have limited to no documentation, no support, and is not guaranteed to be made available as GA in the future. Some products or projects may also call this stage alpha.

A tech preview feature or version should not be depended upon in a production environment.

Tech preview features are experimental. Interfaces for features in tech preview could change in backwards-incompatible ways. Do not count on the feature becoming a formal product, and expect it to change heavily if it does.

Beta

A beta designation in Kong software means the functionality of a feature or release version is of high quality and can be used in a non-production environment.

A beta feature or version should not be depended upon in a production environment.

Note the following when using a beta feature or version:

• Beta customers are encouraged to engage Kong Support to report issues encountered in beta testing. Support requests should be filed with normal priority, but contractual SLA’s will not be applicable for beta features.
• Support is not available for data recovery, rollback, or other tasks when using a beta feature or version.
• User documentation might not be available, complete, or reflect entire functionality.

A beta feature or version is made available to the general public for usability testing and to gain feedback about the feature or version before releasing it as a production-ready, stable feature or version.

General availability

General availability, or GA, means that the software is released publicly and is supported according to Kong’s support and maintenance policy. Generally available features usually have official documentation (as needed) and interfaces are stable.

If feature documentation doesn’t have a tech preview, alpha, or beta label, then the feature is generally available.

You can depend on GA features in production environments.

Interfaces are guaranteed to follow a semantic versioning model for any changes.