Prior to Rails 7.2, the maintenance policy was slightly vague, and did not provide explicit dates for support. On one hand, this was nice because releases would often receive support for security issues for three to four years. The general guideline was that the current release series will receive bug fixes and the current series and the one prior (7.1.x, 7.0.x) would receive security updates. “Severe” security updates may even be provided for older releases at the discretion of the Rails core team.

The trouble with this policy is that it made planning for upgrades difficult without having known dates. Starting with version 7.2, the maintenance policy is clear and simple. A minor version will receive bug fixes for one year and security support for two years from the date of the first release in the series. So because Rails 7.2 was released August 9, 2024, it will receive bug fixes until August 9, 2025 and security updates until August 9, 2026. Part of the reason for this change as noted in the new policy, is that the Rails team aims to release a new version of six months.

What about Rails version 6.1 through 7.1? How long will they be supported? Thankfully the Rails team has grandfathered them in and outlined the following dates for security support:

| Release | EOL         |

| ------- | ----------- |

| 7.1     | Oct 1, 2025 |

| 7.0     | Apr 1, 2025 |

| 6.1     | Oct 1, 2024 |

Source: endoflife.date

Does this new policy give you some heart burn? Don’t sweat it, the devs at Neomind are Ruby on Rails upgrade experts and we would be happy to set up a stewardship plan that keeps your application humming along smooth and secure. Application stewardship is near and dear to our hearts, and anything that helps us better proactively care for our client’s software is a win in our book!

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