Understanding versioning and availability

Elasticsearch and the core components of the Elastic Stack use a semantic versioning scheme. This scheme consists of three numbers separated by periods in the form X.Y.Z, for example: 9.0.0.

Each number represents a specific level of change:

• Major (X): Indicates significant changes, such as new features, breaking changes, and major enhancements. Upgrading to a new major version may require changes to your existing setup and configurations.
• Minor (Y): Introduces new features and improvements, while maintaining backward compatibility with the previous minor versions within the same major version. Upgrading to a new minor version should not require any changes to your existing setup.
• Patch (Z): Contains bug fixes and security updates, without introducing new features or breaking changes. Upgrading to a new patch version should be seamless and not require any changes to your existing setup.

It's important to understand this versioning system, for compatibility and upgrade planning.

Elastic products and features have different availability states across deployment types and lifecycle stages.

Features may have different availability states between:

• Deployment type: The environment where the feature is available (Stack, Serverless, ECE, ECK, etc.)
• Lifecycle state: The development or support status of the feature (GA, Beta, etc.)
• Version: The specific version the lifecycle state applies to

Features may have different states between:

• Elastic Stack versions (e.g., 9.0, 9.1)
• Deployment types (and deployment versions)
  • Elastic Cloud Hosted
  • Elastic Cloud Serverless
  • Self-managed deployments
  • Elastic Cloud Enterprise (ECE)
    • ECE deployment versions (for example, 4.0.0)
  • Elastic Cloud on Kubernetes (ECK)
    • ECK deployment versions (for example, 3.0.0)
• Serverless project types
  • Security
  • Elasticsearch
  • Observability

• Always check feature lifecycle state for your specific deployment type and version
• Pay attention to Elastic Stack version requirements
• Note that Serverless features may vary by project type

Our documentation uses badges to help you quickly identify where and when features are available for your specific environment.

Badges can appear in two places:

1. Page headers: Shows the overall availability across all deployment types
2. Section headers: Indicates specific availability for content in that section

Here are some examples to help you understand how to read the availability badges.

Elastic Stack (9.1.0)

• Deployment type: Elastic Stack
• Version: 9.1
• Lifecycle: Generally Available (GA) — default state

Serverless Elasticsearch Serverless Security Beta

• Deployment type: Serverless
• Lifecycle:
  • Beta for Security projects
  • Generally Available for Elasticsearch projects

ECE Discontinued (4.1.0)

• Deployment type: Elastic Cloud Enterprise
• Lifecycle: Discontinued
• Version: 4.1.0