Moodle is the world’s most popular open Source Learning Management system. It is used globally with more than 325 million users across 240+ countries. Since the release of Moodle 2, there is a new Moodle version released every few months. Moodle Administrators often struggle to devise a strategy to keep their Moodle site updated to latest version. In this post, we will see the schedule for release of Moodle version so that you can plan your upgrade process accordingly.
Moodle is following a half-yearly cycle for the new version release. The six-monthly release is termed as Major release. Major versions are intended to introduce new features & functionality in Moodle core. Then, there is a version release after every two months, which is termed as Minor release. This version is mainly intended to fix the bugs & security issues in the Moodle core. There is another Major version which is termed as LTS release which is generally released after every 2 years or 4 major releases.
Moodle HQ team will provide support for general core bugs for 12 months (1 year) from the date of release for all Major versions. After general support period, the support is limited only for the security issues which will be provided for 18 months from date of release.
The support period for the LTS version is maximum which is 18 months for General bugs and 30 months for security fixes. The LTS Version is planned to cater the need for the educational institutes which need a longer period to plan their upgrade. The most recent long-term support release (LTS) version is Moodle 3.9 while the next release (Moodle 4.1) will be November 2022.
Moodle Release graph
You can refer to above image for the upcoming Moodle version releases and the support period. You can check the official Moodle release page here to check the currently supported Moodle versions and the support period.
Once you have finalize the schedule & frequency for your Moodle site, you can follow the Upgrade process as mentioned here.