Moodle 5.0 Reaches End of Life on October 5 — and 5.1 Leaves General Support the Same Day
Moodle's release calendar is regular enough that its deadlines rarely make news, which is exactly how they get missed. On October 5, 2026, Moodle 5.0 received its last security fix. General bug-fix support for 5.0 already ended on April 20, 2026; what ended in October was the eighteen-month security tail, and a 5.0 site is now unpatched for anything found from here on. The same day, Moodle 5.1 left general support (October 5, 2026) and entered its own security-only phase, which runs to April 19, 2027. Moodle 5.3 was released the same day, with general support to October 4, 2027 and security support to October 1, 2029.
The dates, from Moodle's own releases page
Moodle publishes two end dates per release: general support (bug fixes for core bugs, twelve months for a standard release) and security support (security fixes only, eighteen months for a standard release and three years for a Long-Term Support release). Every row below matches that page; the Moodle 5.3 row was added on its release day.
| Version | Released | General support ends | Security support ends |
|---|---|---|---|
| Moodle 5.3 | October 5, 2026 | October 4, 2027 | October 1, 2029 |
| Moodle 5.2 | April 20, 2026 | April 19, 2027 | October 4, 2027 |
| Moodle 5.1 | October 6, 2025 | October 5, 2026 | April 19, 2027 |
| Moodle 5.0 | April 14, 2025 | April 20, 2026 | October 5, 2026 |
| Moodle 4.5 LTS | October 7, 2024 | October 6, 2025 | October 4, 2027 |
| Moodle 4.4 | April 22, 2024 | April 21, 2025 | December 8, 2025 (past) |
The 4.5 LTS anomaly: older, and supported longer
The row that surprises people is 4.5. It is older than 5.0 and 5.1, yet its security support runs to October 4, 2027, a full year past 5.0 and six months past 5.1, because it is a Long-Term Support release. A site that upgraded from 4.5 to 5.0 last year to stay current has, in lifecycle terms, moved backwards: 5.0 ended this October, and the site it left behind is still supported. That is not an argument for downgrading. It is an argument for choosing the next target deliberately: 5.2 (security fixes to October 4, 2027, general support to April 19, 2027) or Moodle 5.3, released on the day 5.0 ended, whose security fixes run to October 1, 2029, longer than any other current release. Moodle's own guidance for any version past security support is one sentence: update to a currently supported version.
Who is actually on 5.0
Moodle's cadence is a release every April and October, and institutions upgrade in the summer between academic years. Anyone who did the summer 2025 upgrade landed on 5.0, the newest release at the time. Those sites are now one release behind, with 5.0 having lost security support on October 5, 2026, and the next low-risk upgrade window is not until summer 2027. The practical choices are an upgrade to 5.3 or 5.2 during the October reading week or winter break, or an explicit, documented decision to run 5.0 unpatched until then, which is a risk-acceptance an information-security office should sign rather than a helpdesk. Hosted Moodle (MoodleCloud and Moodle Partner hosting) is upgraded by the provider; self-hosted and university-run installations are the population this deadline is about.
The four-week checklist
- Find the version. Site administration → Notifications shows it, or read
version.phpin the web root. Do this for every Moodle instance, including the departmental ones nobody put on the inventory. - Check plugins first. Moodle upgrades fail on third-party plugins, not on core. Confirm every installed plugin has a release for the version you are moving to before scheduling anything; retire the ones that do not.
- Upgrade to 5.3 or 5.2, not 5.1. 5.1 left general support on the same October 5 date and has only six months of security fixes after that. Going to 5.1 buys one extra upgrade, not time; 5.3 is the release with the longest support ahead of it.
- If you have not moved yet, write it down. Which sites, what data they hold, the date the upgrade is scheduled, and who accepted the interval. An unpatched learning platform holding student records is the kind of finding auditors look for first.
Every Moodle version's dates, updated as Moodle publishes them, are on our Moodle lifecycle page; the Stack Scanner reads a pasted inventory against the full dataset, Moodle included.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does Moodle 5.0 reach end of life?
Moodle 5.0's security support ended October 5, 2026. General bug-fix support ended April 20, 2026. After October 5 the release receives no security fixes; Moodle's guidance is to update to a currently supported version.
Is Moodle 5.1 still supported after October 5, 2026?
Partly. Moodle 5.1's general support ended on October 5, 2026, and it now receives security fixes only, until April 19, 2027.
Why is Moodle 4.5 supported longer than 5.0 and 5.1?
Moodle 4.5 is a Long-Term Support release and receives security fixes for three years, to October 4, 2027. Standard releases such as 5.0 and 5.1 receive twelve months of general support and eighteen months of security support in total.
What should a site on Moodle 5.0 upgrade to?
Moodle 5.3, released October 5, 2026, with general support to October 4, 2027 and security support to October 1, 2029, or Moodle 5.2, released April 20, 2026, with general support to April 19, 2027 and security support to October 4, 2027. Upgrading to 5.1 instead gains only six months of security-only coverage.
Is there paid extended support for Moodle 5.0?
Not from HeroDevs. Its Never-Ending Support for Moodle covers the 4.3 line only: a drop-in replacement for Moodle 4.3 that keeps shipping security fixes on 4.3.x after Moodle's own support ended. HeroDevs' documentation lists no 5.0 line, so for a site on 5.0 the choices are the upgrade to 5.3 or 5.2 or a documented risk acceptance. A site still on 4.3 now has a paid route: tell us what you're running and we'll match you with a vetted provider, free, within one business day.
Where are these dates published?
Moodle's releases page at moodledev.io/general/releases lists the release date, general support end and security support end for every version. The dates in this article were checked against that page on 2026-10-05 and are bound to the same data our Moodle lifecycle page uses.