Red Hat Virtualization End of Life (EOL) Dates & Support Timeline
Complete end-of-life dates, support windows, and security status for all Red Hat Virtualization versions. Data sourced from endoflife.date and official vendor documentation. Updated at every deploy.
Every tracked Red Hat Virtualization version is past end of life; the most recent to reach it, 4.4, did so on August 31, 2024. The full Red Hat Virtualization lifecycle, with every version's release and end-of-support date, is in the table below.
Running an EOL version? Get matched with support options — free ↓| Version | Latest Release | Release Date | EOL Date | Days | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | — | Nov 3, 2009 | Mar 31, 2013 | 4941 days past EOL | EOL |
| 3 | — | Jan 18, 2012 | Sep 30, 2017 | 3297 days past EOL | EOL |
| 4.0 | — | — | Aug 31, 2017 | 3327 days past EOL | EOL |
| 4.1 | — | Apr 18, 2017 | Apr 30, 2018 | 3085 days past EOL | EOL |
| 4.2 | — | May 15, 2018 | May 31, 2020 | 2323 days past EOL | EOL |
| 4.3 | — | May 8, 2019 | Aug 31, 2022 | 1501 days past EOL | EOL |
| 4.4 | — | Aug 4, 2020 | Aug 31, 2024 | 770 days past EOL | EOL |
Live EOL badge for your README — updates automatically at every build.
[](https://endoflife.ai/redhat-virtualization)
Red Hat Virtualization lifecycle status — the real story
Red Hat Virtualization (RHV) is Red Hat's KVM-based virtualization platform: RHV Manager runs the environment and RHV Hypervisor hosts run the virtual machines. Versions 2 and 3 were sold as Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV). Red Hat publishes the dates in its Red Hat Virtualization Life Cycle page and the life cycle data behind it. Each major release gets five years of production support followed by two years in an Extended Life Phase. 4.4 is the final version: its Maintenance support ended on August 31, 2024 and its Extended Life Phase on August 31, 2026, the last dated phase for any RHV version. For the next step, Red Hat points to OpenShift with OpenShift Virtualization, which it says provides continuity for the KVM stack RHV manages.
Security fixes stop well before the Extended Life Phase ends. Full support, Extended Update Support (offered for 4.2 and 4.3, hypervisor only) and Maintenance support all ship security advisories. In the Extended Life Phase Red Hat gives limited technical support on existing installations, and the policy says "No bug fixes, security fixes, hardware enablement or root-cause analysis" are available. CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog (2026.10.08) has no entry for Red Hat Virtualization.
Field mapping: support is the end of Full support. eol is the end of the last phase that ships security fixes. That is the Maintenance support end for 4.4, 4.3, 3 and 2, the Extended Update Support end for 4.2, which has no Maintenance phase, and the Full support end for 4.1 and 4.0, which have neither. Extended Life Phase ends are not served as extended support because that phase ships no fixes. Release days come from the compatibility matrix on the policy page. For 4.1 and 4.2 Red Hat's life cycle data gives the first of the month instead, and for 4.0 the page gives only August 2016, so no release day is shown for 4.0.
Red Hat Virtualization release and support pattern
Across the 6 release lines with a published release date, Red Hat Virtualization has shipped a new line roughly every 1.2 years (median interval). A line typically stays supported for about 3.4 years from its release to its end-of-life date (measured on the 6 lines with both dates published).
Of the 7 release lines tracked, 7 are past end of life and 0 are still within support. The newest line, 4.4, was released August 4, 2020.
Computed from the tracked release data at every build — the figures above are the dates in the table, restated, not an editorial estimate.
What does Red Hat Virtualization end of life mean for your organization?
When a version of Red Hat Virtualization 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: A CVE-based scan does not show the accumulation of unpatched vulnerabilities in EOL software. Some scanners flag unsupported versions of common products, but coverage varies, and none of them give you the date in advance. With a zero-day, nobody knows about the vulnerability. With EOL software, the vulnerability is public — listed, rated, and often weaponized — but no vendor patch is coming. This is one of the most dangerous gaps in enterprise security posture.
Organizations running EOL Red Hat Virtualization 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 Red Hat Virtualization 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.
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 Red Hat Virtualization versions. This is a bridge, not a permanent solution — plan your migration in parallel.
Red Hat Virtualization has 7 versions past end of life — security patches have stopped, but CVE disclosures haven't. Extended support past the official date exists for many products in this position — whether it exists for Red Hat Virtualization is exactly what we check. Tell us where to reach you and we'll reply with matched options and pricing guidance — or an honest "no vendor covers this."