Introduction
Umbraco is an open-source content management system built on the Microsoft technology stack.
With the release of Umbraco 9 on September 28th, 2021, the Umbraco release cadence was amended; this was to enable Umbraco to be safe, secure and use the latest technology. More information on Umbraco's versioning and release cadence can be found here.
Umbraco have announced a Long-term Support and End-of-Life policy this policy is actively maintained, and details active, upcoming and end of life release.
As Umbraco is built on the Microsoft tech stack, an organisation may want to consider both Umbraco's End of Life and Microsoft's End of life policy when planning for upgrades, this is particularly true of sites hosted in Umbraco versions 8, 10 and 12. The reasons for upgrading from these versions are explored further in each of the next sections.
Umbraco 8
If the site is build on Umbraco 10, it will be end of life on February 24, 2025. However it is built on the .NET Framework, the lifecycle policy for the .NET Framework is complex you can read more about it at Microsoft .NET Framework and Lifecycle FAQ - .NET Framework. If hosting your Umbraco site in a Microsoft Azure Web App the supported .NET Framework version is .NET Framework 4.8.
Umbraco 10
The security phase for Umbraco 10 starts on June 16, 2024 and it will be end of life on June 16th, 2025. However Umbraco 10 is built on .NET 6 is currently in support phase and moves to end of support on November 12, 2024, for more information see Microsoft's .NET and .NET Core release lifecycle. Anyone hosting their Umbraco 10 site in Azure may have received an email from Azure with the subject "Action required: Upgrade your App Service apps to .NET 8 (LTS) by 12 November 2024". This says:
On 12 November 2024, extended support for .NET 6 (LTS) will end. Your apps that are hosted on App Service will continue to run, but security updates will no longer be available and we’ll no longer provide customer service for .NET 6 (LTS). Learn more about App Service language support.
Umbraco 12
Umbraco 12 is currently in security phase and is end of life on June 29th, 2024. Umbraco 12 is built on .NET 7 Microsoft Ended support for this on May 14th, 2024.
Summary
When assessing end of life for an Umbraco Version, do not forget to consider both the Umbraco lifecycle and the Microsoft .NET Framework/ Microsoft .NET lifecycle.
So, if your site is hosted in Umbraco 8, 10, or 12, it is time to consider upgrading to Umbraco 13 (LTS) or Umbraco 14 (STS).