MySQL Connector/J End of Life (EOL) Dates & Support Timeline
Complete end-of-life dates, support windows, and security status for all MySQL Connector/J versions. Data sourced from endoflife.date and official vendor documentation. Updated at every deploy.
| Version | Latest Release | Release Date | EOL Date | Days | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | 8.4.0 | Apr 19, 2018 | Apr 30, 2026 | 71 days past EOL | EOL |
| 9 | 9.7.0 | Jul 2, 2024 | TBD | Supported | Active |
MySQL Connector/J lifecycle status — the real story
MySQL Connector/J is Oracle's official JDBC driver — the piece of code sitting between virtually every Java application and its MySQL database. Its lifecycle tracks the MySQL server's: the 8.x driver line ends with MySQL 8.0's end of life in April 2026, with 8.4.0 (April 2024) as the line's final release before development moved to the 9.x series (July 2024), which is current and actively maintained.
The longer-lived hazard is the legacy line: Connector/J 5.1 left standard support on February 9, 2021 (final release 5.1.49), yet it remains embedded in enterprise Java applications everywhere — often pinned for compatibility with ancient app servers, often arriving transitively. A database driver handles credentials and every byte of query traffic; running one that stopped receiving security fixes in 2021 is a quietly serious exposure.
Upgrading is usually low-drama (the driver is designed for cross-version compatibility with 8.0 and 8.4 servers), but the Maven coordinates changed from mysql:mysql-connector-java to com.mysql:mysql-connector-j in 2022 — so dependency scanners that only watch the new coordinate silently miss every legacy copy still shipping under the old one.
What does MySQL Connector/J end of life mean for your organization?
When a version of MySQL Connector/J 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 MySQL Connector/J 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.
Extended Support Options
If you cannot migrate immediately, extended support vendors provide continued security patches for EOL MySQL Connector/J versions. This is a bridge, not a permanent solution — plan your migration in parallel.
Never-Ending Support for MySQL Connector/J — commercial security patches beyond end of life.
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