Important
Always upgrade to the latest stable patch release of your release series.
MongoDB versioning has the form X.Y.Z where X.Y refers to the
release series and Z refers to the patch number.
Starting with MongoDB 8.2, MongoDB adopts a new versioning and release strategy to simplify upgrade paths and provide clearer versioning options. MongoDB is released as two different release series:
Major Releases
Minor Releases
Major Releases
Major Releases are made available approximately once a year, and introduce new features and improvements. Major Releases are supported for MongoDB Atlas and on-premises deployments.
Example versions:
7.08.0
Minor Releases
Minor releases introduce incremental improvements and new features within a major version release cycle. They are as stable as major releases and suitable for production workloads.
Starting with MongoDB 8.2, minor releases will also be available for on-premises deployments (Community and EA) for specific use cases, such as Search, Vector Search, and enhanced Queryable Encryption capabilities.
Example versions:
8.2
Note
For the 8.0 release cycle, MongoDB 8.2 is available for both Atlas and on-premises deployments. In MongoDB Atlas, 8.2 is supported until the next minor release.
Release Options for MongoDB Atlas
Starting with MongoDB 8.2, two release options are available for Atlas Dedicated clusters:
Major Versions: You can choose to stay on a specific major version such as MongoDB 8.0. Clusters on major versions receive bug fixes and security patches. You must manually upgrade clusters before their End of Life (EOL). Otherwise, Atlas automatically upgrades clusters to the latest supported major version after EOL.
Latest Version with Auto-Upgrade: If you set your cluster to this release option, it receives automatic upgrades to the latest available MongoDB version and enables new features.
Note
You cannot choose a release option for clusters on the Free and Flex tiers as these clusters are automatically upgraded.
Patch Releases
Patch Releases are made available as needed to both Major Releases and Minor Releases. Patch releases generally include bug fixes and minor improvements.
Example versions:
8.0.1(a Major Release patch version)8.2.1(a Minor Release patch version)
Release Candidate (RC) Releases
In advance of new Major Releases and Minor Releases, Release Candidates are made available for early testing. A Release Candidate represents a version of the upcoming release that is stable enough to use for testing, but is not suitable for production deployment.
Example versions:
6.0.0-rc06.0.0-rc16.1.2-rc5
Driver Versions
The version numbering system for MongoDB differs from the system used for the MongoDB drivers.
MongoDB Shell (mongosh)
The MongoDB Shell (mongosh) is released separately
from the MongoDB Server and uses its own version numbering system.
Database Tools
MongoDB Database Tools are released separately from the MongoDB Server and use their own version numbering system.