Horizon End of Life: The Product Isn't Dead — But Your Version Might Be

Updated: August 2026  ·  Buyer's guide — dates verified against the Omnissa Lifecycle Matrix

"Horizon end of life" is really three different questions, and they have three different answers:

• Is Horizon 7 end of life? Yes, completely. Per the Omnissa Lifecycle Matrix, Horizon 7.13 — the final 7.x release — reached end of general support on April 30, 2023, and even its technical-guidance phase ended April 30, 2025. There is no supported tier left for any Horizon 7 deployment.
• Is Horizon 8 end of life? No — it is actively developed and supported, now by Omnissa rather than VMware. But each individual Horizon 8 release expires roughly three years after it ships. Three releases reached end of general support in 2026 alone — 2303 on March 30, 2306 on July 6, and the 2212 Extended Service Branch on July 12 — and 2309 is next, on October 26, 2026.
• Is Horizon-the-product going away after the Broadcom deal? No. It was sold, not sunset — the accurate version of that story is one section down, because it explains why half the lifecycle links you find are dead.

So the real work is knowing which release you run and when its clock stops. Every date on this page is cross-checked against the Omnissa Lifecycle Matrix — the successor to VMware's old lifecycle pages and the single authoritative source for Horizon dates — and tracked live on our Horizon page.

From VMware to Broadcom to Omnissa: who owns Horizon now

Broadcom completed its acquisition of VMware in late 2023. Rather than keep the end-user computing business, Broadcom sold it — Horizon, Workspace ONE, and the surrounding EUC portfolio — to the investment firm KKR, and in 2024 that business began operating as a standalone company: Omnissa. The product is now formally Omnissa Horizon 8; documentation moved to docs.omnissa.com, support and knowledge-base content to kb.omnissa.com, and lifecycle dates are published in the Omnissa Lifecycle Matrix rather than VMware's retired lifecycle pages. For buyers the practical consequences are that support contracts and renewals run through Omnissa, that old vmware.com lifecycle bookmarks no longer resolve to current data, and that Horizon's lifecycle policy — three years of general support per release, one year of technical guidance — carried over intact through the transition.

Every Horizon 8 version's dates

The Omnissa model, per the matrix: general support (new security patches and bug fixes) runs about three years from a release's availability; technical guidance adds a fourth year with access to existing fixes only — the matrix is explicit that technical guidance means no new patches or bug fixes. Versions marked ESB are Extended Service Branches (explained below).

†Dates cross-checked against the Omnissa Lifecycle Matrix as accessed August 1, 2026; where sources disagreed, the matrix wins — 8.2503's end of general support (April 15, 2028) and 8.2406's availability date (July 25, 2024) follow the matrix. Live per-version status: endoflife.ai/horizon.

The pattern to internalize: a Horizon 8 version dies roughly every quarter. This is not a platform where "we upgraded in 2023" means anything today — 2023's releases (2303, 2306, 2309) are exactly the ones expiring across 2026.

ESB vs Current Release: which clock you're on

Horizon 8 ships on two tracks, and knowing yours is half the planning battle:

• Extended Service Branches (ESB) — 2111, 2212, 2312, 2503, 2603 — are the stability track, roughly one per year. Per Omnissa's ESB documentation, each ESB receives periodic maintenance updates containing only critical bug fixes, security fixes, and new Windows 10/11 support — no new features — with three years of general support (occasionally extended, as 2212's July 2026 date was). No special licensing is required; a standard Horizon license covers either track, and you can switch between tracks at upgrade time as long as the target version shipped after the one you are leaving.
• Current Releases (CR) — everything else — carry the same three-year support window but get no dedicated maintenance stream; staying secure on the CR track in practice means upgrading to newer CRs as they arrive.

Mission-critical VDI estates overwhelmingly belong on ESB: it is the closest thing Horizon has to Citrix's LTSR concept, and it is the track that lets a large estate hold still between deliberate migrations.

Running an expired version: the honest risk picture

Nothing turns off at end of general support. Connection Servers keep brokering, agents keep serving desktops, and for one more year (technical guidance) you can still download existing patches. The actual exposure:

• No new security fixes. Technical guidance explicitly excludes new patches. A vulnerability disclosed after your version's EOGS date will be fixed in supported releases only. Horizon's own history shows why that matters — when Log4Shell hit in late 2021, Horizon was one of the most-targeted enterprise products, and the fix arrived as a wave of patched builds. On an out-of-support version, that wave passes you by.
• A remote-access product is a hard thing to leave unpatched. Horizon's connection infrastructure exists to accept inbound sessions, frequently from the internet via Unified Access Gateway. Unsupported internet-facing access infrastructure is precisely the category CISA's recent directives push agencies to evict from the network edge.
• Interoperability drift. New Horizon Clients, new Windows builds in your images, and new vSphere updates stop being qualified against your version. VDI estates feel this faster than most software, because the guest OS inside the desktops keeps moving even when the platform doesn't.
• Compliance and insurance. Unsupported software is a standing audit finding and an increasingly common cyber-insurance questionnaire item — and "the vendor no longer exists at that URL" does not read well in either context.

Your options, by situation

On Horizon 8, version expired or expiring (2309 and earlier)

Upgrade in place. The supported rule is simple: you can move to any Horizon 8 version released after yours. For stability-focused estates the sensible targets are the current ESBs — 2503 (general support to April 15, 2028) or 2603 (to April 14, 2029) — with 2603 the obvious choice for maximum runway. Fast-cadence shops can ride Current Releases like 2512. Whichever you choose, the Connection Server/agent upgrade is a routine, well-documented path — the cost is validation time, not re-architecture.

Still on Horizon 7

There is no in-support destination inside the 7.x world and no technical-guidance safety net left. Realistic paths: a full migration to Horizon 8 (a real project — new Connection Servers, new agents, image work), a move to a different VDI/DaaS platform if the estate is being rethought anyway, or third-party support as a security bridge while one of those happens. Doing nothing means running unsupported remote-access infrastructure indefinitely — the worst available option.

Rethinking the platform entirely

Many Horizon estates are making their version decision inside a bigger question, because Horizon runs on vSphere — and ESXi's own Broadcom-era licensing and lifecycle changes have put the underlying infrastructure's cost and future on the table at many organizations. If your vSphere renewal is in play, it is rational to decide the hypervisor question and the VDI question together rather than migrate Horizon twice. The main alternatives buyers evaluate are Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (which has its own LTSR clock ticking) and the DaaS platforms; we track the lifecycle side of all of them — Horizon, Citrix VAD, and VMware ESXi.

Can't move on the vendor's schedule

Omnissa's lifecycle has no paid post-EOGS extension program equivalent to Microsoft's ESU — technical guidance is the built-in grace period, and it adds no new patches. Where the dates and your migration plan don't line up, third-party support is the mechanism enterprises use to keep security coverage on the platform while the move completes — or tell us your situation via the form on this page and we'll reply with matched, vetted options. Free, no obligation.

The Horizon lifecycle checklist

1. Find your exact version. Connection Server version in the admin console, agent versions across pools. Check it against the live table — with a version dying nearly every quarter, "Horizon 8" is not an answer.
2. Mark the two dates that apply to you. Your version's end of general support (last new patches) and end of technical guidance (last access to existing ones). If you run 2309: October 26, 2026 and October 26, 2027.
3. Get on an ESB if stability is the goal. 2603 buys general support to April 2029 — the longest runway currently on offer.
4. Decide the platform question once. If the vSphere renewal is forcing an infrastructure rethink, sequence the Horizon decision with it, not after it.
5. Put the next date on the calendar. Three-year clocks feel long exactly once. Our Horizon page can add each version's EOL to your calendar with reminders built in.

We track lifecycle deadlines like these across 480+ products — see every Horizon version and its dates, check any version in seconds, or watch what else is expiring this half, all against dates verified against vendor sources.

Frequently Asked Questions

Related Resources

• Omnissa Horizon — every version, dated and risk-scored
• VMware ESXi — the infrastructure under your Horizon estate
• VMware ESXi & vSphere End of Life in the Broadcom Era
• Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops 2203 End of Life — the other big VDI clock
• Extended support options when the vendor's clock runs out