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Sitecore support changes for 2026: version-by-version breakdown
A complete breakdown of the updated support model, critical dates, and impacts to your business.
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Sitecore is making changes to its support model as of June 1, 2026. The most noteworthy change is that production incident support and security updates will be paid for all versions in Extended Support. If you're on Sitecore 9.x, you're already in Sustaining Support with no security patches available at any price. If you're on Sitecore 10.0 or 10.1, Extended Support ends this year and the paid model applies now. If you're on Sitecore 10.2 or higher you have more runway for planning upgrades, but you're paying extra for certain aspects of support as of June 1, 2026.
If you want to talk through your options or find the easiest path to an upgrade, please contact us at Fishtank for an open discussion about your options.
Sitecore provides up to 8 years of support from a version's general availability date, broken into 3 phases. Each phase reduces what's covered, and understanding the difference is important because after June 1 you'll see a change in what Extended Support actually delivers.
Mainstream is the full-coverage phase. Sitecore is actively maintaining your version, and this is what you're paying for. Everything works the way you'd expect. No surprises, no extra costs.
What's included:
Extended Support is where the trade-offs start. You lose new features and compatibility fixes entirely, and several services move behind a paywall.
What's still included:
What's paid (contact your Sitecore account representative):
What's no longer available:
Until now, Extended Support still included security patches and production incident support as part of your agreement. That's what made it a reasonable safety net while you planned your upgrade. From June 1, 2026, both of those move to paid as well. That's the change that affects most customers on older versions.
After June 1, the only things still included in Extended Support are documentation, the knowledge base, forums, and version upgrade assistance. Almost everything else requires a separate paid arrangement.
Sustaining is the final phase, and coverage is minimal. The June 1 change doesn't affect Sustaining, because it was already this limited.
What's still included:
What's paid:
What's no longer available:
After Sustaining ends, it's End of Life. No support of any kind.
Here's Sitecore's own support matrix showing what's included in each phase. The change that matters is in the Extended column, as production incidents and security updates move from included to paid.
| Service | Mainstream | Extended | Sustaining |
|---|---|---|---|
| Documentation, KB, forums | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Version upgrade assistance | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Production incident support | ✓ | ✓ | $ |
| Security updates and fixes | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Installation/development errors | ✓ | $ | — |
| Hotfixes and patches for defects | ✓ | $ | — |
| Compatibility fixes for platforms | ✓ | — | — |
| Service | Mainstream | Extended | Sustaining |
|---|---|---|---|
| Documentation, KB, forums | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Version upgrade assistance | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Production incident support | ✓ | $ | $ |
| Security updates and fixes | ✓ | $ | — |
| Installation/development errors | ✓ | $ | — |
| Hotfixes and patches for defects | ✓ | $ | — |
| Compatibility fixes for platforms | ✓ | — | — |
Legend
Sitecore publishes KB0641167 as the canonical reference for their Product Support Lifecycle, and it was recently updated to introduce a new support model for customers in Extended and Sustaining Support.
The change that matters: as of June 1, 2026, Extended Support no longer includes production incident support or security updates as part of your agreement. Both are now paid. Sitecore's language is "contact your Sitecore account representative to discuss options." Hotfixes, defect patches, and installation/development error support were already paid in Extended, so this change means almost everything outside of documentation and upgrade assistance now carries an additional cost.
The Sustaining column didn't actually change — production incidents were already paid there, and security patches were already unavailable. The shift is exclusively in Extended Support, and by mid-2026, every customer in that phase will be on the new model. The full transition details are in KB0641167.
Here's the full picture with exact dates from Sitecore's documentation. The urgency column reflects how quickly you should consider acting.
| Version | Current phase | Extended support ends | Sustaining support ends | Urgency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8.2 and earlier | End of Life | Ended | Dec 31, 2025 | High |
| 9.0 | End of Life | Dec 31, 2023 | Dec 31, 2025 | High |
| 9.1 | Sustaining | Dec 31, 2024 | Dec 31, 2026 | High |
| 9.2 / 9.3 | Sustaining | Dec 31, 2025 | Dec 31, 2027 | High |
| 10.0 / 10.1 | Extended | Dec 31, 2026 | Dec 31, 2028 | High |
| 10.2 | Extended | Dec 31, 2027 | Dec 31, 2029 | Medium |
| 10.3 | Extended | Dec 31, 2028 | Dec 31, 2030 | Low |
| 10.4 | Mainstream | Dec 31, 2030 | Dec 31, 2032 | Low |
| SitecoreAI (formerly XM Cloud) | SaaS — always current | N/A | N/A | — |
Support for service packs (like 10.4.1) follows the parent version's lifecycle. Sitecore module support matches the version they're installed on unless stated otherwise.
9.0 reached End of Life on December 31, 2025. 9.1 is in Sustaining through December 31, 2026, the last year of any support at all. 9.2 and 9.3 are in Sustaining through December 31, 2027, but that means no security patches at any price. The only thing left is paid production incident support.
If you're still running 9.x in production, the support conversation is over — it's now about your migration path. Whether that's an upgrade to 10.4 or a move to SitecoreAI (formerly XM Cloud) depends on your situation, but staying put is carrying security and compliance risk that grows every month.
This is the most time-sensitive group in Extended Support. The June 1 change makes security patches and production incidents paid immediately, and then Extended Support itself runs out on December 31, 2026. After that, you drop to Sustaining where security patches aren't available at all — not even as a paid option.
And speaking from first-hand experience, nine months sounds like a lot until you factor in planning, budget approval, and execution. If you're on 10.0 or 10.1, this is the year to have the upgrade conversation.
10.2 is in Extended Support with a longer runway, but the economics just changed. Security patches and production incident support, which were included until now, are paid as of June 1. Extended Support runs through December 31, 2027, with Sustaining through December 31, 2029.
You have time to plan, but you're now paying more for the privilege of staying put. Worth understanding what those costs look like and factoring them into your upgrade timeline.
Same situation as 10.2, with even more runway. Extended Support runs through December 31, 2028, Sustaining through December 31, 2030. The June 1 change still applies, security patches and production incidents are now paid. But you have the longest window of any version in Extended right now.
This is a good time to evaluate whether your next move is a 10.4 upgrade or a migration to SitecoreAI (formerly XM Cloud). You have the luxury of being strategic about it.
10.4 is the only version in Mainstream Support. Full coverage through December 31, 2027 (patches, fixes, production help, all included). No impact from the June 1 change.
Worth keeping in mind: when 10.4 eventually enters Extended Support after December 2027, it will be under the new model. Even if you're comfortable today, the long-term picture favors staying current or planning your SitecoreAI (formerly XM Cloud) migration.
SaaS, continuously updated, no version lifecycle to manage. Sitecore handles infrastructure, updates, and security. This is where Sitecore is investing, and it's the destination for most organizations eventually — the question is timing.
Not sure where your version falls or what your best next step is? We work through these decisions with Sitecore customers regularly, and we're happy to walk through your situation.
From our experience, most organizations facing this support change are choosing between two paths: upgrade to 10.4 to buy time, or start planning the move to SitecoreAI (formerly XM Cloud) now. Some are doing both, upgrading to 10.4 as a bridge while they plan the migration on their own timeline.
Upgrading to 10.4 makes sense if your current implementation is stable, your customizations are manageable, and you want the most direct path back into Mainstream Support. It's still a significant project, if you're coming from a much older version there may be breaking changes to work through around serialization, dependency injection, and other areas. But a majority of the effort tends to be in setting up infrastructure and testing, not rewriting your application. If you're on a fairly recent version like 10.2 or 10.3, the gap is smaller and the upgrade path is more straightforward. We have accelerators that cut the typical upgrade timeline significantly, which changes the math for a lot of organizations.
Moving to SitecoreAI (formerly XM Cloud) makes sense if you were already evaluating the platform, if your current implementation has significant technical debt you'd rather leave behind, or if you'd rather invest migration dollars once than pay for an upgrade now and a migration later. The economics can work in your favor: fold the upgrade budget into one project instead of two. If you're weighing the numbers, we do a lot of work around total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis for SitecoreAI — reach out and we can help you model that.
Upgrading now, migrating later can be a fit for organizations that are just on the cusp of being current (say, on 10.2 or 10.3) where the upgrade to 10.4 is a relatively small project that buys time to plan a SitecoreAI migration properly. It's less practical if you're multiple versions behind, because you'd be investing in a significant upgrade just to delay the bigger move. This tends to be the exception rather than the default path.
The right answer depends on your codebase, your infrastructure, how many versions behind you are, your team, and your business timeline. If you want to figure out which path fits, we've helped a lot of organizations work through this exact decision.
Fishtank has been helping organizations navigate Sitecore's platform evolution for years. We've done the upgrades, we've done the migrations, and we've helped teams figure out the right sequence for both. We also have TIDAL, our SitecoreAI accelerator, that has features that allow your existing sites to be migrated like-for-like with more speed and efficiency.
Whether you need a fast, cost-effective upgrade to 10.4 or you're ready to evaluate SitecoreAI (formerly XM Cloud), we can give you an honest read on what each path looks like for your specific setup.
Please contact us at Fishtank for an easy chat about where your Sitecore instance stands and what path is best for you.
