Hazelcast 5.3 End of Extended Support: November 19, 2026

By Scott Bissett  ·  Published: October 16, 2026  ·  Reference guide  ·  Dates read on October 16, 2026 in Hazelcast's Version Support Windows table (support.hazelcast.com) and the Hazelcast Platform documentation (docs.hazelcast.com).

Hazelcast Platform 5.3 reaches the end of Extended Support on November 19, 2026. Hazelcast prints that date in its Version Support Windows table, next to a release date of May 19, 2023 and an end of Standard Support of May 19, 2025. The second date matters more than the first: Standard Support is the only period in which Hazelcast makes patch releases, so 5.3 has received none since May 19, 2025. What ends on November 19, 2026 is the assistance that followed it. After that day, Hazelcast's general support description offers nothing for 5.3 at all.

Hazelcast's two support periods, in Hazelcast's words

The Version Support Windows article sets out one rule for every minor version of Hazelcast Platform, IMDG, Management Center and Jet. Standard Support runs "for a period of two years from the date of initial release", and during it Hazelcast "will make patch releases available, at its discretion, to correct errors." Extended Support then runs "for an additional 18 months", in which Hazelcast continues to give assistance, guidance and recommendations, "however, no further patch releases will be available."

Two qualifications sit at the top and bottom of the page. Hazelcast offers both periods "to its customers per the terms of their agreements", and where an agreement differs from the general description, the agreement wins; if you hold a Hazelcast contract, its terms are the ones that bind. And the page closes with a recommendation: "Hazelcast recommends that customers run versions of Hazelcast products that are within their Standard Support window." By that measure 5.3 has been outside the recommended window since May 19, 2025.

A related change makes the patch question sharper for newer lines. Hazelcast's Community Edition release notes say that from 5.4, "patch releases are only available for Enterprise Edition". From 5.4 on, Community Edition users receive fixes only in minor and major releases.

The Hazelcast Platform lines and their dates

Dates as Hazelcast prints them in its support table, read on October 16, 2026. The status badge follows Standard Support, because that is when patches stop. Each line links to its live status page here.

Every line back to IMDG 3.12 is on our Hazelcast Platform lifecycle page. Hazelcast's table does not label any line as a long-term support release.

Key dates

• May 19, 2023: Hazelcast Platform 5.3 released.
• May 19, 2025: Standard Support for 5.3 ends. No patch releases after this day.
• November 19, 2026: Extended Support for 5.3 ends. This page.
• October 16, 2027: Extended Support for 5.4 ends, the next Extended Support deadline after 5.3.
• October 15, 2027: Standard Support for 5.6 ends.

What changes when Extended Support ends

For the software, nothing: a 5.3 cluster keeps running, and its last patch is the same build it was the day before. The change is on the support side. Until November 19, 2026, a customer whose agreement covers 5.3 can still ask Hazelcast for assistance, guidance and recommendations on it; after that day, the general description covers 5.3 with neither patches nor assistance.

The security exposure began earlier. Any vulnerability fixed in Hazelcast since May 19, 2025 has been fixed in the patch releases of later lines, not in 5.3. Hazelcast sits in the data path of the systems that use it, often holding sessions, cached records or in-flight events, so an unpatched member is part of that system's attack surface. Our Hazelcast 5.3 page carries the live EOL Risk Score.

Hazelcast does not state any paid option that extends 5.3 past November 19, 2026. If your agreement with Hazelcast says something different, the agreement governs, as the support page itself notes.

Upgrade path from 5.3

1. Pick the target line. Hazelcast 5.7 has Standard Support until May 13, 2028 and Hazelcast 5.6 until October 15, 2027. Stopping at 5.4 or 5.5 removes the November deadline but not the patch gap: both left Standard Support on April 16, 2026 and July 30, 2026.
2. Move the JDK first. Hazelcast's compatibility page for 5.3 lists JDK 11 and 17 distributions, the page for 5.4 lists JDK 17 and 21, and the page for 5.7 lists JDK 17, 21 and 25. Members running 5.3 on JDK 11 can move to JDK 17 while still on 5.3, which separates the Java change from the Hazelcast one.
3. Plan one rolling upgrade per minor version. Hazelcast's rolling upgrade documentation supports moving to a new patch version, or to "the next minor version of the same major version", both marked Enterprise Edition only, and says a direct upgrade needs the source to be "no more than one minor version below" the target. From 5.3, reaching 5.7 is four rolling upgrades: to 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 and then 5.7.
4. Run each step as Hazelcast describes it. Shut members down gracefully one at a time, wait for partition migrations to finish, replace the Hazelcast JAR, start the member and wait for it to join and for migrations to finish again. When every member runs the new version, trigger the cluster version upgrade through Management Center, the hz-cluster-admin script or auto-upgrade; the documentation says auto-upgrade is disabled by default, and that Management Center itself must be upgraded first if you use it for this step.
5. Community Edition clusters. The same page limits upgrades to the same edition and marks both rolling upgrade types as Enterprise Edition only, so a Community Edition cluster has no rolling path on it. Plan that move as a maintenance window, and note that Community Edition receives no patch releases from 5.4 on.
6. Check clients and tools in the same pass. Hazelcast's supported versions page lists the client and Management Center versions each line works with. Read the release notes for every line you cross for removed or changed features before each step.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related

• Hazelcast 5.3 — the live status page with its EOL Risk Score
• Hazelcast Platform — every line's dates
• Hazelcast 5.7 · Hazelcast 5.6 — the lines still in Standard Support
• 2026 EOL calendar — every dated end of support this year
• Hazelcast Version Support Windows — the vendor page these dates were read from
• How we verify our dates — the rules every number on this site is held to