Apache Commons End of Life (EOL) Dates & Support Timeline
Complete end-of-life dates, support windows, and security status for all Apache Commons versions. Data sourced from endoflife.date and official vendor documentation. Updated at every deploy.
| Version | Latest Release | Release Date | EOL Date | Days | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| beanutils-1 | 1.11.0 | Sep 20, 2005 | TBD | Supported | Active |
| codec-1 | 1.22.0 | Sep 20, 2005 | TBD | Supported | Active |
| compress-1 | 1.28.0 | May 21, 2009 | TBD | Supported | Active |
| text-1 | 1.15.0 | Mar 6, 2017 | TBD | Supported | Active |
| collections-4 | 4.5.0 | Nov 20, 2013 | TBD | Supported | Active |
| io-2 | 2.22.0 | Oct 18, 2010 | TBD | Supported | Active |
| lang-3 | 3.20.0 | Jul 19, 2011 | TBD | Supported | Active |
Apache Commons lifecycle status — the real story
Apache Commons isn't one library — it's a family of several dozen small Java components (Lang, IO, Collections, Text, Compress, Codec, BeanUtils and more) that are collectively among the most-deployed code on the JVM. Nearly every Java application ships several of them, almost always transitively. The table above tracks the flagship components' current, maintained lines; all are actively developed by the Apache Commons project.
The family's lifecycle risk isn't abandonment — it's old copies that never get upgraded, and the security history is serious: Commons Text's "Text4Shell" interpolation flaw (CVE-2022-42889), Commons Collections' infamous deserialization gadget chain that powered a generation of Java RCE exploits, BeanUtils property-access flaws, and a steady stream of Compress archive-parsing CVEs. Every one of those is fixed in current versions — and permanently present in the years-old copies pinned deep in enterprise dependency trees.
Because Commons components are small, stable, and transitively supplied by frameworks, they're precisely the dependencies nobody audits. Lockfile-level scanning plus dependency-management overrides to current versions is the whole remediation — cheap insurance for some of the most attacked code paths in Java history.
What does Apache Commons end of life mean for your organization?
When a version of Apache Commons reaches end of life, the maintainers stop issuing security patches. Vulnerabilities discovered after this date are publicly disclosed on the National Vulnerability Database, exploit code appears on GitHub, and your systems remain permanently exposed.
The CVE blind spot: Most vulnerability scanners check for known CVEs but do not flag the accumulation of unpatched vulnerabilities in EOL software. With a zero-day, nobody knows about the vulnerability. With EOL software, the vulnerability is public — listed, rated, and often weaponized — but no patch will ever exist. This is the most dangerous gap in enterprise security posture.
Organizations running EOL Apache Commons should treat it as a vulnerability class in their risk register, apply compensating controls (network segmentation, enhanced monitoring, access restriction), and prioritize migration to a supported version.
Extended Support Options
If you cannot migrate immediately, extended support vendors provide continued security patches for EOL Apache Commons versions. This is a bridge, not a permanent solution — plan your migration in parallel.
Never-Ending Support for Apache Commons components — commercial security patches beyond end of life.
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