Release Schedule

Timeline of maintenance and support for Plone releases.
Plone currently has two Release Managers: Maurits van Rees and Eric Steele. Maurits does Plone 6 and maintenance for Plone 5.2. Eric focuses on the non-code parts of Plone 6. This is their page for telling you when you can expect a new Plone release. Also, this tells you until when a Plone series is supported.
In the following overview, we use these terms:
  • Maintenance support: bug fixes and small new features are added. Around the end of maintenance support, a last release will be done.
  • Security support: Plone security hotfixes will be made available for this series. For more information, see the security update policy.
General advice for all Plone versions: 
  • Migrate to Plone 5.2 on Python 3 as soon as you can. You should have done this in 2020. This is the only version expected to have maintenance and security support for several years.
  • Use the highest Python version that is supported by your Plone version. For release schedules of core Python, see https://www.python.org/downloads/
  • Check the hotfixes page to see if any security fixes are available for your Plone version.
Now let's go to the release schedule per Plone version. First we show it graphically. (Thanks to the Django download page for the idea of how to show this.)
Plone Release Schedule, see text following this image
Plone 6.0 series:
  • First alpha release: October 22, 2021.
  • Current release: 6.0.0rc2, December 5 2022.
  • Next, and first official release expected: Monday December 12, 2022.
  • Supports Python 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11.
  • Uses Zope 5.
  • Upgrade to Plone 6 is only possible from a 5.2 site running on Python 3.
  • Maintenance support for one year after release or until Plone 6.1 comes out, whichever comes last.
  • Security support until 31 October 2027.
Plone 5.2 series:
  • This is currently the main version. If you use Plone 5.2 on Python 3, you are in a good position.
  • First official release: 5.2.0, July 2019.
  • Current release: 5.2.10, October 2022.
  • Next release expected: January 2023.
  • Supports Python 2.7, 3.7, 3.8. Python 3.6 should still work, we do not try to break it, but is is no longer supported. Note that both Python 2.7 and 3.6 have reached end of life, and will get harder to test and support.
  • Uses Zope 4.
  • Upgrade from Plone 5.1 and earlier is only possible on Python 2.7. Afterwards, the upgraded site can be upgraded to Python 3.
  • Maintenance support until October 2023.
  • Security support until 31 October 2024.
Plone 5.1 series:
  • First official release: 5.1.0, March 2018
  • Last  release: 5.1.7, October 2020
  • Supports Python 2.7.
  • This is the last Plone series that uses Zope 2 (version 2.13.x). Warning: this Zope series is hardly getting fixes anymore.
  • Maintenance support has ended.
  • Security support until December 2020 or until Plone 6 comes out, whichever comes last.
Plone 5.0 series:
  • First official release: 5.0.0, September 2015
  • Last release: 5.0.10, February 2019
  • Supports Python 2.7.
  • Maintenance support has ended.
  • Security support until December 2020 or until Plone 6 comes out, whichever comes last.
Plone 4.3 series:
  • First official release: 4.3.0, April 2013
  • Last release: 4.3.20, August 2020
  • Supports Python 2.7. Earlier 4.3 versions supported 2.6 as well, but this is not tested anymore.
  • Maintenance support has ended.
  • Security support until December 2020 or until Plone 6 comes out, whichever comes last.