Determining the upgrade path

This section explains the principles to follow in order to determine if you can perform the upgrade directly or must upgrade first to intermediary version(s).

This section explains the principles to follow to determine whether you can perform the upgrade directly or must upgrade first to an intermediate version(s). To understand the principles, you must first understand the Release cycle model.

To determine your upgrade path, consider the following principles:

• You can upgrade directly from a non-LTA version to another if there is no LTA version in your upgrade path.

• If there is at least one LTA version in your upgrade path, you must first upgrade to each intermediate LTA and then to your target version.

• When upgrading to an LTA version, you should directly upgrade to its latest patch.

• You can upgrade from the latest LTA version to the latest non-LTA version directly.

• If you’re migrating from an earlier patch version of an LTA, you can upgrade directly to the next LTA. You don’t need to install any intermediate patch versions.

• There is no LTA concept for SonarQube Community Build.

Upgrade path examples

From version	To version	Upgrade path
9.9 LTA	2025.1 LTA	9.9 LTA > 2025.1 LTA (direct)
8.9	2025.1 LTA	8.9 LTA > 9.9 LTA > 2025.1 LTA (one intermediate step)
2025.1 LTA	2025.3	2025.1 LTA > 2025.3 (direct)
10.6	2025.1 LTA	10.6 > 2025.1 LTA (direct)
10.6	2025.3	10.6 > 2025.1 LTA > 2025.3 (one intermediate step)

You can use our calculator to help determine your update path.