CDH (Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop) End of Life (EOL) Dates & Support Timeline
Complete end-of-life dates, support windows, and security status for all CDH (Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop) versions. Data sourced from endoflife.date and official vendor documentation. Updated at every deploy.
Running an EOL version? Get matched with support options — free ↓| Version | Latest Release | Release Date | EOL Date | Days | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5.9 | — | Oct 1, 2016 | Oct 31, 2019 | 2472 days past EOL | EOL |
| 5.10 | — | Jan 1, 2017 | Jan 31, 2020 | 2380 days past EOL | EOL |
| 5.11 | — | Apr 1, 2017 | Apr 30, 2020 | 2290 days past EOL | EOL |
| 5.12 | — | Jul 1, 2017 | Jul 31, 2020 | 2198 days past EOL | EOL |
| 5.13 | — | Oct 1, 2017 | Oct 31, 2020 | 2106 days past EOL | EOL |
| 5.14 | — | Jan 1, 2018 | Dec 31, 2020 | 2045 days past EOL | EOL |
| 5.15 | — | Jun 1, 2018 | Dec 31, 2020 | 2045 days past EOL | EOL |
| 5.16 | 5.16.2 | Nov 1, 2018 | Dec 31, 2020 | 2045 days past EOL | EOL |
| 6.0 | — | Aug 1, 2018 | Aug 31, 2021 | 1802 days past EOL | EOL |
| 6.1 | — | Dec 1, 2018 | Dec 31, 2021 | 1680 days past EOL | EOL |
| 6.2 | — | Mar 1, 2019 | Mar 31, 2022 | 1590 days past EOL | EOL |
| 6.3 | 6.3.4 | Jul 1, 2019 | Mar 31, 2022 | 1590 days past EOL | EOL |
Live EOL badge for your README — updates automatically at every build.
[](https://endoflife.ai/cdh)
CDH (Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop) lifecycle status — the real story
CDH — the Cloudera Distribution including Apache Hadoop, listed as 'Cloudera Enterprise' in Cloudera's own lifecycle table — is fully end of life. The 6.x generation ended in stages: 6.0 in August 2021, 6.1 in December 2021, and the final releases 6.2 and 6.3 (6.3.4 was the last CDH build ever shipped) in March 2022. The 5.x line expired earlier still, with the last three minors (5.14–5.16) all ending in December 2020.
There was no paid extension. Cloudera offered a free six-month 'Limited Support' runway for CDH 6.2/6.3 subscribers — April to September 2022 — but it explicitly excluded code fixes, root-cause analysis, and escalation: migration assistance, not patching. Every CDH cluster still running has been without security fixes since March 2022 at the latest, and since January 2021 even the install binaries sit behind Cloudera's subscription paywall.
Cloudera publishes its lifecycle commitments at month granularity rather than as exact days. The dates in this table normalise each published month to its final day, which is how Cloudera's own support lifecycle policy reads; treat them as the end of the stated month, not as a guaranteed cut-off timestamp.
What does CDH (Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop) end of life mean for your organization?
When a version of CDH (Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop) 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 CDH (Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop) 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.
Your options when CDH (Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop) reaches end of life
There are four realistic paths. Which one is right depends far more on how long the system needs to keep running than on the version you are on today.
| Option | Best when | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Move to a supported version | The system will outlive the current version's support window and you can schedule the work | Budget for compatibility testing, not just the upgrade itself — that is where the real cost sits |
| Replace the component | The project is unmaintained, or a better-supported alternative exists | The replacement has its own lifecycle and its own end-of-life date — you are changing vendors, not escaping the problem |
| Buy extended support | Migration is genuinely underway but cannot finish before the deadline, or the workload is frozen by certification or a third-party application | A bridge, not a destination — every year purchased is a year the migration still has to happen |
| Document accepted risk | The system is isolated, short-lived, or scheduled for retirement | Only defensible with real compensating controls and a written decision — auditors treat undocumented end-of-life software as a finding |
How to choose, in one question: how many more years does this system need to run? Under a year, extended support (where it exists) is usually cheaper than an emergency migration. One to three years, migrate — support purchased repeatedly costs more than doing the project once, and the project only gets harder as the version ages. Indefinitely, migrate now and plan the next migration before it surprises you.
Worth saying plainly, because vendors selling extended support rarely will: extended support is often the more expensive choice over a multi-year horizon. It is the right answer when a deadline is genuinely unreachable, not as a default. Compare the annual fee against the one-time cost of migrating before committing to either.
Extended Support Options
If you cannot migrate immediately, extended support vendors provide continued security patches for EOL CDH (Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop) versions. This is a bridge, not a permanent solution — plan your migration in parallel.
CDH (Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop) has 12 versions past end of life — security patches have stopped, but CVE disclosures haven't. The good news: extended support for CDH (Cloudera Distribution of Hadoop) exists — vetted vendors ship security patches for years past the official date. Tell us where to reach you and we'll reply with matched options and pricing guidance.