When is the next LTS version scheduled? which quarter, what year? thanks

[Linda Zhang]

We would like to plan for Bitbucket upgrade, and currently on 7.21.1, which is LTS. We are wondering when will next LTS be released? 

[Craig Castle-Mead]

Hey Linda,

The below is speculation only based on previous patterns and not based on any information from Atlassian at all, but LTS's appear to be released for a major new version ~ 6 months after the initial .0 release, then a year or so later there's been another LTS (Bitbucket 7.0.0 came out in March 2020, and the first 7.x LTS was 7.6.0 in Sep 2020, then 7.17 LTS in October the following year). If you assume a similar pattern for 8.x, - 8.0 dropped in May 2022, this would put 6 months after in November, but given that's close to the end of the year, maybe Feb 2023. Given 8.x brings a significant structural change with Bitbucket Mesh ( https://confluence.atlassian.com/bitbucketserver/bitbucket-data-center-and-server-8-0-release-notes-1115659343.html#BitbucketDataCenterandServer8.0releasenotes-mesh ) - the stability of this new function may dictate when an LTS is viable.

For our org, we're on LTS for Confluence + Jira - and that's been a big benefit so we can upgrade quickly as needed to addresses CVE's etc without worrying about other changes impacting us that need more testing, but given the relative simplicity of Bitbucket as an application, higher release cadence and generally rock solid releases, we moved off LTS for Bitbucket and on to the GA train and have been very happy with this for the last few years. Unsure of your situation, and as always, YMMV.

CCM