The Release Process ¶
This document explains the process followed by the Symfony project to develop, release and maintain its different versions.
Symfony releases follow the semantic versioning strategy and they are published through a time-based model:
- A new Symfony patch version (e.g. 4.4.43, 5.4.10, 6.1.2) comes out roughly every
month. It only contains bug fixes, so you can safely upgrade your applications;Symfony の新しいパッチ バージョン (4.4.43、5.4.10、6.1.2 など) は、ほぼ毎月公開されます。バグ修正のみが含まれているため、アプリケーションを安全にアップグレードできます。
- A new Symfony minor version (e.g. 4.4, 5.4, 6.1) comes out every six months:
one in May and one in November. It contains bug fixes and new features,
can contain new deprecations but it doesn't include any breaking change,
so you can safely upgrade your applications;Symfony の新しいマイナー バージョン (4.4、5.4、6.1 など) は 6 か月ごとにリリースされます。1 つは 5 月、もう 1 つは 11 月です。バグ修正と新機能が含まれており、新しい廃止予定が含まれている可能性がありますが、重大な変更は含まれていないため、アプリケーションを安全にアップグレードできます。
- A new Symfony major version (e.g. 5.0, 6.0, 7.0) comes out every two years
in November of odd years (e.g. 2019, 2021, 2023). It can contain breaking changes,
so you may need to do some changes in your applications before upgrading.Symfony の新しいメジャー バージョン (例: 5.0、6.0、7.0) は、2 年ごとに奇数年 (例: 2019、2021、2023) の 11 月にリリースされます。重大な変更が含まれている可能性があるため、アップグレードする前にアプリケーションにいくつかの変更を加える必要がある場合があります。
Tip
Subscribe to Symfony Release notifications to receive an email when a new Symfony version is published or when a Symfony version reaches its end of life.
Development ¶
Note
The Symfony project is an open-source community-driven development framework. There is no roadmap written or defined in advance. Every feature request may or may not be developed in future versions based on the community. Symfony Core Team members can help move things forward if there's enough interest.
The full development period for any major or minor version lasts six months and is divided into two phases:
- Development: Four months to add new features and to enhance existing
ones;開発: 新機能の追加と既存機能の強化に 4 か月。
- Stabilization: Two months to fix bugs, prepare the release, and wait
for the whole Symfony ecosystem (third-party libraries, bundles, and
projects using Symfony) to catch up.安定化: バグを修正し、リリースを準備し、Symfony エコシステム全体 (サードパーティのライブラリ、バンドル、および Symfony を使用するプロジェクト) が追いつくまで 2 か月。
During the development phase, any new feature can be reverted if it won't be finished in time or if it won't be stable enough to be included in the current final release.
Tip
Check out the Symfony Release to learn more about any specific version.
Maintenance ¶
Starting from the Symfony 3.x branch, the number of minor versions is limited to five per branch (X.0, X.1, X.2, X.3 and X.4). The last minor version of a branch (e.g. 4.4, 5.4) is considered a long-term support version and the other ones are considered standard versions:
| Version Type | Bugs are fixed for... | Security issues are fixed for... |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | 8 months | 8 months |
| Long-Term Support (LTS) | 3 years | 4 years |
Note
After the active maintenance of a Symfony version has ended, you can get professional Symfony support from SensioLabs, the company which sponsors the Symfony project.
Backward Compatibility ¶
Our Backward Compatibility Promise is very strict and allows developers to upgrade with confidence from one minor version of Symfony to the next one.
When a feature implementation cannot be replaced with a better one without breaking backward compatibility, Symfony deprecates the old implementation and adds a new preferred one alongside. Read the conventions document to learn more about how deprecations are handled in Symfony.
This deprecation policy also requires a custom development process for major versions (5.0, 6.0, etc.) In those cases, Symfony develops at the same time two versions: the new major one (e.g. 5.0) and the latest version of the previous branch (e.g. 4.4).
Both versions have the same new features, but they differ in the deprecated features. The oldest version (5.4 in this example) contains all the deprecated features whereas the new version (6.0 in this example) removes all of them.
This allows you to upgrade your projects to the latest minor version (e.g. 5.4), see all the deprecation messages and fix them. Once you have fixed all those deprecations, you can upgrade to the new major version (e.g. 6.0) without effort, because it contains the same features (the only difference are the deprecated features, which your project no longer uses).
PHP Compatibility ¶
The minimum PHP version is decided for each major Symfony version by consensus amongst the core team and documented as part of the technical requirements for running Symfony applications.
Throughout each Symfony release's support lifetime, all released versions of PHP including new major versions will be supported. In this way, the maximum supported version of PHP for a maintained Symfony release is the latest released one that is publicly available.
For out-of-support releases of Symfony, the latest PHP version at time of EOL is the last supported PHP version. Newer versions of PHP may or may not function.
Note
By exception to the rule, bumping the minimum minor version of PHP is possible for a minor Symfony version when this helps fix important issues.
Rationale ¶
This release process was adopted to give more predictability and transparency. It was discussed based on the following goals:
- Shorten the release cycle (allow developers to benefit from the new
features faster);リリース サイクルを短縮する (開発者が新しい機能をより早く利用できるようにする);
- Give more visibility to the developers using the framework and Open-Source
projects using Symfony;フレームワークを使用する開発者と、Symfony を使用するオープンソース プロジェクトの可視性を高めます。
- Improve the experience of Symfony core contributors: everyone knows when a
feature might be available in Symfony;Symfony のコア コントリビューターのエクスペリエンスを向上させます。誰もが Symfony でいつ機能が利用可能になるかを知っています。
- Coordinate the Symfony timeline with popular PHP projects that work well
with Symfony and with projects using Symfony;Symfony のタイムラインを、Symfony とうまく連携する一般的な PHP プロジェクトおよび Symfony を使用するプロジェクトと調整します。
- Give time to the Symfony ecosystem to catch up with the new versions
(bundle authors, documentation writers, translators, ...);Symfony エコシステムが新しいバージョンに追いつくための時間を与えてください (バンドル作成者、ドキュメント作成者、翻訳者など);
- Give companies a strict and predictable timeline they can rely on to plan
their own projects development.企業が独自のプロジェクト開発を計画するために信頼できる厳密で予測可能なタイムラインを企業に提供します。
The six month period was chosen as two releases fit in a year. It also allows for plenty of time to work on new features and it allows for non-ready features to be postponed to the next version without having to wait too long for the next cycle.
The dual maintenance mode was adopted to make every Symfony user happy. Fast movers, who want to work with the latest and the greatest, use the standard version: a new version is published every six months, and there is a two months period to upgrade. Companies wanting more stability use the LTS versions: a new version is published every two years and there is a year to upgrade.