Gitea End of Life (EOL) Dates & Support Timeline

Gitea lifecycle status — the real story

Gitea release and patch dates on this page come from the project’s published release record on GitHub (go-gitea/gitea), checked 2026-08-26. Gitea does not publish a per-version lifecycle table: its own release-cadence documentation describes “a rolling release model rather than a broad set of public long-lived maintenance branches with separate end-of-life dates for each version,” with a version remaining current “until the next major version is released and becomes the recommended upgrade path.”

The end-of-life dates shown here therefore model that stated policy: each minor line is treated as supported until the first release of its successor, which is when patches for the old line stop in practice (occasionally a final courtesy patch lands days after succession, as with 1.20.6 — there is no commitment behind it). There is no LTS line and no paid extended support: when a Gitea line falls behind, the only supported destination is the current release.

This page was added on 2026-08-26, when CISA added CVE-2026-60004 — a CVSS 9.8 code-injection flaw in Gitea’s diffpatch endpoint — to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog with a remediation deadline of 2026-08-28. Gitea’s own advisory states the affected range as “>=1.17, <1.27.1” and the fix as 1.27.1.

Gitea release and support pattern

Across the 11 release lines with a published release date, Gitea has shipped a new line roughly every 5 months (median interval). A line typically stays supported for about 5 months from its release to its end-of-life date (measured on the 10 lines with both dates published).

Of the 11 release lines tracked, 10 are past end of life and 1 is still within support. The newest line, 1.27, was released July 13, 2026. No end-of-life date is currently published for the 1 supported line.

Computed from the tracked release data at every build — the figures above are the dates in the table, restated, not an editorial estimate.

Gitea security intelligence

CISA KEV history: Gitea is named in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog 1 time, most recently on 2026-08-25. Derived from CISA's live catalog at every build.

What does Gitea end of life mean for your organization?

When a version of Gitea 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 Gitea 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 Gitea 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.

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.

Formalizing decisions like this across your estate? Our free EOL policy template is a ready-to-adopt policy with risk tiers, remediation SLAs, and audit mapping — no signup, free to use and share.

Extended Support Options

If you cannot migrate immediately, extended support vendors provide continued security patches for EOL Gitea versions. This is a bridge, not a permanent solution — plan your migration in parallel.

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