Version Support Policy

This page explains the support lifecycle for Seq software versions.

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Seq is constantly improving. The best user experience, security and performance will be achieved by staying close to the latest version. The upgrade process is simple, usually only takes a few minutes and preserves all data and settings. We recommend upgrading Seq at least once every six months.

Version Numbering

The year and release number together will determine what features (some big, some small) a build contains.

Seq versions with the same year and release numbers are highly-compatible. Breaking changes are avoided within a single year.release version range.

Along with the year and release number, Seq executables and container images are marked with a build number, and also a status tag.

• Build numbers uniquely identify a binary artifact. Within a release, the build number changes with every addition of bug fixes or cosmetic improvements.
• Builds that don't have full mainstream support are tagged with a status like -pre (preview).

Support Lifecycle

Support for Seq is tracked on a year.release basis. That is, a support lifecycle applies to 2021.4 separately from, 2022.1, from 2022.2, etc.

Seq versions have a simple support lifecycle: releases receive critical bug fixes and security patches until three months after its successor release becomes available.

For example, 2021.3 is released on 2021-10-26, and starts receiving critical bug fixes and security patches. Then, 2021.4 is released on 2021-12-21. This sets the end-of-support date for 2021.3 to three months from that date: 2022-03-21.

A critical bug is defined as preventing the use of a major program function. Qualification of bugs is considered by Datalust on a per-incident basis.

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In rare instances it is possible that some variation from the planned support lifecycle will be required. While we make our best effort to meet the requirements of a release's support lifecycle, the decision to publish a bug fix or security patch remains at Datalust's discretion.

In all cases, features and non-critical bug fixes are only available by upgrading to the most recent Seq release.

Current Supported Versions

The table below tracks the end-of-support dates for recent Seq releases.