Abstract:
The Debian project team recently announced that Debian Linux 11 will officially end long-term support on August 31, 2026, completing the official life cycle support of approximately 5 years since its release on August 14, 2021. Starting in September 2026, Debian 11 will no longer receive new security updates, and users of this version should upgrade to subsequent new versions.
Ending 5 years of official support:
Debian stable versions usually adopt a maintenance model of 3 years of regular support + 2 years of long-term support. Debian 11 will be maintained by the security team and the release team in the first 3 years of release, and will be maintained by the LTS team starting from August 15, 2024. The latter will continue to provide security updates for various architectures until August 31, 2026.
It should be noted that not all software packages can be fully supported even in the LTS stage. For example, the game classification and the software packages marked as unsupported by Debian security support are not included in the maintenance scope, but usually most of the software required for the production environment can be supported.
Payments can be extended until 2031:
Enterprises that still need to run Debian 11 also have paid options. The Freexian team has taken over extended long-term support and plans to continue to provide security maintenance from September 1, 2026 until June 30, 2031, so enterprises in need can continue to use Debian 11 by paying.
However, extended long-term support is not an official Debian project, but a commercial extended support service. The coverage is determined by the needs of paying customers. Therefore, it cannot be understood as continuing to maintain the Debian official security warehouse for 5 years. Therefore, for ordinary users, directly upgrading Debian 12 or Debian 13 is the best choice.
Note: Debian 12 will have free security support until June 30, 2028, and Debian 13 will have free security support until 2030.
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