I wrote our goodbye post for Mautic 2 back in 2020, and it’s since become a bit of a tradition to give each major version a proper send off when it reaches the end of its supported life (Mautic 3 and Mautic 4 both got one too!). Now it’s the turn of Mautic 5.
Free, community-powered support for the 5.x series ended on 30 June 2026, and we just published the last security release for Mautic 5 marking the end of security support, so if you’re still running Mautic 5.2, now is very much the time to plan your next move.
Here’s a quick look back at what Mautic 5 gave us, and what you can do now.
Clearing technical debt and outdated dependencies
Mautic 5 was a big one under the hood. Back in 2022 we were hoping to ship it in early 2023, and in the end the General Availability release arrived on 9 January 2024.
The main job of Mautic 5 was to get us off a large number of end of life dependencies (software libraries that no longer receive security updates) and onto versions that were still supported, and the release did exactly that.
It brought support for Symfony 5 (the framework Mautic is built on) and PHP 8.1, and it swapped out the old Swiftmailer library, which had reached end of life, for Symfony Mailer.
Not the most glamorous work, but it’s the kind of thing that keeps your contacts’ data safe, which matters a lot when you’re running a marketing automation platform!
What the 5.x series brought us
Once those foundations were in place, the community built two feature releases on top of them.
- Mautic 5.1, the Andromeda Edition, with 10 new features, 168 enhancements and 130 bug fixes. This was also when we started naming our releases after star constellations.
- Mautic 5.2, the Pleiades Edition, which gave Mautic a refreshed user interface along with 12 new features, 97 enhancements and 75 bug fixes.
Mautic 5.2 was also our first ever official Long Term Support (LTS) release following the launch of our new release strategy, which is why it’s stayed with us for so long, receiving bug fixes until 30 June 2026 and security fixes right up until the end of Q2 (the release we just made was delayed a quarter due to limited capacity of the security team, as a result of the influx in security reports received from AI-powered submissions).
Thank you to everyone who built it
Mautic 5 would not have happened without the support of the hundreds of volunteers who submitted bug reports, created fixes, added new features and improvements, wrote the documentation and helped us to release and communicate each update.
Thank you to everybody who has contributed over the years!
What this means if you’re still on Mautic 5
From 1 July 2026 the community no longer releases bug fixes, and from now onwards there will be no free security fixes for Mautic 5.
Any vulnerability found in it from here on won’t get a free patch, and that’s a real risk when the whole point of the platform is holding sensitive information about real humans.
You’ve got a few options, so pick the one that fits your situation.
Upgrade to Mautic 7
Mautic 6 was a shorter ‘bridging’ release, and its free security support also ended on 30 September 2026, so the way forward is Mautic 7. The good news is you don’t need to stop off at 6 on the way, as there is a smooth migration path straight to 7.
Top tip – check your hosting before you upgrade!
Mautic 7 needs PHP 8.2 to 8.5, whereas Mautic 5 ran on PHP 8.1 to 8.3, so you may need a PHP update first.
We have also bumped the minimum MySQL/MariaDB version to 8.4/10.11.0.
Mautic 7.3 will be the LTS version of the 7.x series, with security support until 31 December 2027.
Buy Extended Long Term Support
If you can’t upgrade just yet (lots of custom code, a big fleet of instances, incompatible PHP/MySQL versions or plugins that haven’t caught up yet), Extended Long Term Support (ELTS) for Mautic 5 gives you up to two more years of back-ported security fixes, available through to 30 June 2028, ordered in one-year blocks.
Corporate members of Mautic get a discount on ELTS too, which can be used for clients as well as internally.
ELTS is run by the Mautic project itself, so it also helps fund the work that keeps Mautic going for everyone.
Get some help
If an upgrade feels like a bit much to take on alone, our members and partners include lots of folks who do this day in, day out and would be happy to help.
Over to you
Mautic 5 carried us through more than two and a half years, and I’m curious what it meant for you. What was your favourite thing about the 5.x series, and have you made the jump to Mautic 7 yet, or are you planning to use ELTS while you get ready? I’d love to hear about it on the forum or in Slack!
References
Mautic (2022) An update on the Mautic 5 release schedule. Available at https://mautic.org/blog/update-mautic-5-release-schedule (Accessed 28 October 2026).
Mautic (2024) Mautic 5: Beyond expectations, beyond limits. Available at https://mautic.org/blog/mautic-5-beyond-expectations-beyond-limits (Accessed 28 October 2026).
Mautic releases. Available at https://mautic.org/releases/ (Accessed 28 October 2026).
Mautic Extended Long Term Support (ELTS). Available at https://mautic.org/extended-long-term-support-elts/ (Accessed 28 October 2026).
