Node.js, the open-source JavaScript runtime maintained by the OpenJS Foundation, has announced a fundamental change to its release schedule. Starting with Node.js 27, the project will shift from two major releases per year to one, eliminating the long-standing odd/even versioning model that has defined its release strategy for over a decade.
Under the new schedule, which takes effect in October 2026, a single major release will land each April, with LTS promotion following in October. Every release will now become LTS, removing the distinction where odd-numbered versions served as short-lived experimental lines and only even-numbered versions received long-term support. The project will also introduce a six-month Alpha channel for early testing, using semver prerelease formatting such as 27.0.0-alpha.1. Version numbers will align with the calendar year of their initial Current release, meaning 27.0.0 arrives in 2027, 28.0.0 in 2028, and so on.
The decision stems from a proposal opened by Node.js TSC member Rafael Gonzaga in July 2025, which outlined the growing strain on maintainers caused by managing multiple concurrent release lines, backporting fixes, and supporting versions that saw minimal adoption. The odd-numbered releases in particular had long been skipped by most organisations, yet still required maintenance effort from the volunteer-driven release team.
James Snell, a longtime Node.js core contributor who originally helped design the existing release cycle, acknowledged that the model was overdue for change:
I'm definitely a big +1 on revisiting the release and LTS plan. When I first proposed the current plan a decade ago it was based entirely on corporate adoption cycles that were relevant at that time and we really haven't revisited the plan since. It's always good to periodically revisit to see if the needs of ecosystem and the project have changed.
Not all contributors were fully aligned on the details. The GitHub discussion highlighted a tension between enterprise users who prefer long support windows and teams that upgrade frequently and want faster access to new features. Kevin Lentin, describing the perspective from inside a large corporation, wrote:
Our current policy is to run LTS but we upgrade very quickly (It'll be sometimes minutes from a SEMVER minor or patch into dev, an hour into nonprod and then next sprint deployment into prod). If we only get new LTS every 2 years, I'll go nuts waiting for features. Even 1 year without backporting is going to be quite painful.
The announcement on X received significant engagement, with over 2,100 likes and 36 replies. The shift has also prompted discussions in adjacent ecosystems, with some in the Angular community suggesting that similar frameworks should follow suit.
For teams currently on LTS versions, the migration path is straightforward. The official blog post notes that "if you already only upgrade to LTS versions, little changes beyond version numbering." LTS support windows remain similar at 30 months. Library authors are encouraged to integrate Alpha releases into their CI pipelines as early as possible, as the official guidance warns that testing only on LTS releases will mean bugs are not reported before they affect users. Node.js 26, which shipped in April 2026, will be the final release under the existing model.
Node.js is an open-source, cross-platform JavaScript runtime built on Google's V8 engine. It is widely used for server-side development and remains one of the most commonly used web technologies according to the Stack Overflow Developer Survey, with first-class support across frameworks including Express, Fastify, and Next.js.