Extended ELTS for TYPO3 8.7—it’s happening

At the request of our ELTS customers, we evaluated a continuation of ELTS 8.7 during August and have now decided to extend ELTS 8.7 one more year. Security and compatibility updates will be available for another year–until March 31, 2024!

We have decided to share our decision with our customers at least six months before launch and make pre-orders available three months before the start of the fourth year. This way, we give both agencies and end customers enough time to plan strategically.

Plans for the fourth year of ELTS 8.7 will become available for pre-order in the official TYPO3 online shop on January 1, 2023!

As you already know, the TYPO3 community publishes a new Long Term Support (LTS) version of TYPO3 every 18 months. The two current LTS versions are TYPO3 10 and 11 LTS. Each version has a regular maintenance period of three years.

TYPO3 8.7 LTS released in April 2017 and was supported by the TYPO3 core team for three years, from 2017 to 2020. TYPO3 8.7 introduced a considerable performance increase in backend and frontend of up to 40%, significant improvements to the mobile responsive backend, brand new image manipulation and cropping, the form framework, CKEditor as RTE, introduced Doctrine DBAL, and further improved the already powerful multi-language capabilities of TYPO3. Furthermore, Fluid was decoupled from the TYPO3 core and was made stand-alone.

Since the EOL of 8.7 LTS on March 31, 2020, the Extended Long Term Support (ELTS) period. These three years are officially extended by one more year until March 31, 2024.

The average lifespan of a website between significant changes and overhauls nowadays is reportedly two years and seven months. Suppose an organization can get value from a website for more than three years. In that case, it’s getting an above-average return on its investment. Longer guaranteed maintenance periods mean TYPO3 CMS delivers better ROI—more savings and more value for your investment.

Just because TYPO3 continues to develop new features and releases doesn’t negate the benefits of earlier releases. TYPO3 8.7 is still an excellent fit for organizations that can’t or won’t upgrade specific sites to newer versions for various reasons. If it’s working, why fix it?

On the other hand, the core team can’t support each TYPO3 CMS version forever, and that’s where Extended Long Term Support (ELTS) comes in. It allows those who use TYPO3 8.7 to invest in resources and fund the maintenance of this version. It ensures their websites still work and are safe from security threats.

When you compare the costs of upgrading and redesign, the cost of an extended support plan is just the right fit for many sites. The subscription model keeps the total cost of ownership low and extends the initial investment. The service guarantees support for these systems for up to six years. And now, Extended Long Term Support (ELTS) for TYPO3 8.7 LTS is extended by one more year.

ELTS keeps you up-to-date and legally compliant. During ELTS, we backport security patches to ensure your website is secure and updated as issues are discovered and fixed in newer versions. ELTS also includes browser compatibility improvements, like the latest TYPO3 versions. So you can be sure your website or web application will keep working in modern browsers. Legal frameworks, like the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), make website owners liable for security problems and infractions if their software is not up-to-date.