Upgrade matrix

Upgrading Jira applications

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This upgrade matrix should serve as a starting point when researching which version of Jira Software and Jira Service Desk is right for your team. 

Here you'll find all of the supported versions including:


Long Term Support releases

If you're only upgrading about once a year, Enterprise releases are a good choice.

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Jira Software top features

Here's a summary of the great new features awaiting your users.

8.8
  • Revamped audit log
  • Setting dates for future sprints
  • Accessibility settings
  • Running Jira Data Center on a single node (available for all versions)
Release notes
8.7
  • Anonymizing users for GDPR compliance
  • PostgreSQL 11 support
  • OpenID Connect comes to Jira Data Center
Release notes
8.6
  • Jira copies over changes files on upgrade
  • New JVM code cache check
  • Replying to JIRA notifications in Outlook made way better
  • Users and roles made better
  • PostgreSQL 10 comes to Jira
  • Several older platforms get deprecated
  • Prefix and suffix search
  • Accessible dropdown menus
  • Configurable scheme parameters in Jira REST API for projects creation
  • Burnup charts in Jira Software
  • Self-protect your Jira Data Center and sleep easy with rate limiting
  • New information in the audit log for Jira Data Center
  • Cluster monitoring in Jira Data Center
Release notes
8.5

This is a Long Term Support release.

  • Jira Server mobile app distributable to managed devices with MDM
  • New JVM check available
Release notes
8.4
  • Filters in 'Multi user picker' custom field
  • Batching emails as a default setting
  • External links open in a new tab
  • Filters to browse archived issues
  • Jira becomes more accessible
  • Lots of versions OK for boards
  • Time tracking in bulk edit
  • Templates for deploying Jira in a Docker container (8.0 and later)
Release notes
8.3
  • Jira Server mobile app
  • Content Delivery Network (CDN) for Jira Data Center
  • AdoptOpenJDK bundled with Jira
  • List of custom changes after upgrade
  • New filters to search for custom fields
  • Browsing projects is faster
  • Improvements to batching emails
  • Cluster lock mechanism improved in Data Center
  • Re-indexing made better
Release notes
8.2
  • First milestone in filters on the Archived issues export page (Jira Data Center)
  • Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2017

  • Official support for Java 11
  • AdoptOpenJDK 8 bundled with Jira
Release notes
8.1
  • Archiving issues, first milestone (Jira Data Center)
  • Archiving components
  • Development info on issue cards
  • Improvements to boards: resizable Detail View and horizontal scrollbar for boards with many columns
  • Performance improvements for boards and backlogs, and other pages that use the side navigation
  • Improvements to deployment templates for Jira Data Center on Microsoft Azure
  • New JMX metrics for more insights into Jira performance
  • Sorting projects by columns
  • Ability to add additional custom fields to batched email notifications
  • Information about recent activity on user profiles
  • New avatars
Release notes
8.0
  • Jira Software mobile app (beta)
  • Batching email notificaitons to reduce the number of emails you're getting from Jira
  • New look and feel of Scrum/Kanban boards and backlogs
  • Performance improvements for backlogs
  • New priority icons
  • New JQL options: finding authors of updates, and finding link types
  • New configuration for MySQL 5.7 that allows 4-byte characters
  • Massive improvements to indexing
  • REST API for issue type schemes
Release notes
7.13

This is a Long Term Support release.

  • Support for OpenJDK 8.
Release notes
7.12
  • Custom fields optimizer (Data Center)
  • Sharing edit rights for filters and dashboards
  • New events in the audit log (filters and dashboards)
  • New look and feel of the custom fields page
  • Disabling Days in column time indicator to improve performance
  • New compression method (Google's Snappy) when copying the index between the nodes (Data Center)
Release notes
7.11
  • Support for IPv6
  • New columns on the Projects page (Issues, Last issue update)
  • Development information available in Basic Search
  • Apache Tomcat 8.5.29
Release notes
7.10
  • New look and feel for Jira, including the first wave of changes to the most frequently used pages.
  • Archiving inactive or completed projects (Data Center).
  • New events in the audit log.
  • Case-insensitive labels.
  • Quick start guide for Jira Data Center.
  • Sending Jira notifications to Stride rooms and conversations.
Release notes
7.9
  • Improved Kanban boards showing only recently modified issues in the Done column.
  • Searching through versions with a wildcard.
  • Choosing delimiters when exporting your issues to CSV.
  • Disabling empty JQL queries to avoid performance issues with empty filters.
  • New events in the audit log.
  • Asynchronous cache replication in Jira Data Center.
  • IPv6 support for MySQL databases.
Release notes
7.8
  • Quick search that shows instant results, and displays your recent work if you're not searching.
  • Dutch language pack.
Release notes
7.7
  • REST API to manage priority schemes outside of the user interface
  • Italian and Finnish language packs
Release notes
7.6

This is a Long Term Support release.

  • Project-specific priorities.
  • Live monitoring of your Jira instance with JMX.
  • Subtasks drag 'n' drop.
  • X-Frame-Options to prevent clickjacking.
Release notes
7.5
  • Improved Kanban backlog: versions and epics panels to let you better manage your releases.
  • Sprint goals: add goals to your sprints to let your team know what you want to achieve.
  • Renaming and deleting inactive or closed sprints.
  • Jira Software Data Center on Microsoft Azure.
  • Events for creating and deleting issue links.
  • Syntax highlighting for additional 25 languages.

  • New Czech, Estonian, Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovak, and Polish language packs.

Release notes


Jira Service Desk top features

Here's a summary of the great new features awaiting your users.

4.8
  • Managing multiple issues at once with bulk actions
  • No more duplicate attachments in requests
  • Accessibility settings
  • Revamped audit log
  • Running Jira Data Center on a single node (available for all versions)
Release notes
4.7.
  • Requests are private by default
  • Email verification
  • Changes in how agents are treated by Jira
  • Anonymizing users for GDPR compliance
  • OpenID Connect (Data Center)
Release notes
4.6
  • New portal is now default
  • Improvements to agent queues
  • REST API for managing agent queues
  • Previous and next search results
  • Users and roles made better
  • Custom changes transferred on upgrade
  • Suffix search
  • New health check: JVM code cache
  • Rate limiting (Data Center)
  • New events in the audit log (Data Center)
Release notes
4.5

This is a Long Term Support release.

  • Massive performance improvements
Release notes
4.4
  • More control over SLA calendars
  • Issue archiving in Jira Service Desk Data Center
  • Filters in 'Multi user picker' custom field
  • Batching emails as a default setting
  • External links open in a new tab
  • Filters to browse archived issues
  • Jira becomes more accessible
  • Lots of versions OK for boards
  • Time tracking in bulk edit
Release notes
4.3
  • Search just got smarter
  • Limited threads to boost performance
  • Content Delivery Network (CDN) for Jira Data Center
  • AdoptOpenJDK bundled with Jira
  • List of custom changes after upgrade
  • New filters to search for custom fields
  • Browsing projects is faster
  • Safter cluster lock mechanism for Data Center
  • Reindexing made easier
Release notes
4.2
  • Edit custom fields in Jira Service Desk automation
  • Better knowledge base search experience
  • Enhanced knowledge base reports
  • Jira Service Desk source code available
  • Support for Microsoft SQL Server 2017

  • Official support for Java 11
  • AdoptOpenJDK 8 bundled with Jira
Release notes
4.1
  • New help center and customer portal experience
  • Smarter automation webhooks
  • Information about recent activity on user profiles
  • New avatars
Release notes
4.0
  • Performance improvements for common tasks
  • New priority icons
  • New JQL options: finding authors of updates, and finding link types
  • New configuration for MySQL 5.7 that allows 4-byte characters
  • Massive improvements to indexing
Release notes
3.16

This is a Long Term Support release.

  • Support for OpenJDK 8
Release notes
3.15
  • Smart SLAs based on due dates
  • Custom fields optimizer (Data Center)
  • Sharing edit rights for filters and dashboards
  • New events in the audit log (filters and dashboards)
  • New look and feel of the custom fields page
Release notes
3.14
  • New look and feel for the most frequently used pages
  • Support for IPv6
  • Project archiving for Data Center
  • New columns on the Projects page (Issues, Last issue update)
  • Dutch added to languages available in Jira Service Desk
Release notes
3.13
  • New events in the audit log
Release notes
3.12
  • Approve requests from email
  • Searching versions with a wildcard
  • IPv6 support for MySQL databases
Release notes
3.11
  • Improved quick search
Release notes
3.10
  • Visibility on approvals
  • Disable account verification emails
Release notes
3.9

This is a Long Term Support release.

  • Project-specific priorities (from 3.9.4 only)
  • Better canned responses
  • Auto approvals
  • Live monitoring of your Jira instance with JMX
Release notes
3.8
  • Import SLAs
  • Events for linked issues
  • Syntax highlighting for 25 more languages
Release notes
3.7
  • Canned responses comes to Jira Service Desk
Release notes


Supported platform changes

From time to time we will add or end support for a platform. Here's a summary of the changes since Jira Software 7.4, and Jira Service Desk 3.7. 

8.8/4.8

Ended support for:

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2012
  • PostgreSQL 9.4, 9.5
  • Solaris
  • Oracle 12c R1
Supported platforms
8.7/4.7

Added support for:

  • PostgreSQL 11 and Aurora 3.0 for Jira Data Center
Supported platforms
8.6/4.6

Added support for:

  • PostgreSQL 10

Ended support for:

  • Internet Explorer 11
Supported platforms
8.5/4.5No changesSupported platforms
8.4/4.4

Added support for:

  • Aurora PostgreSQL for Jira Data Center
  • Oracle 19c
  • Oracle 18c

Ended support for:

  • Deprecation of several Jira native importers available as part of the Jira Importers Plugin (JIM). We're only supporting import from CSV and JSON.
  • Advance notice: Createmeta REST endpoint will soon be removed.
Supported platforms
8.3/4.3

Added support for:

  • Oracle 12c Release 2

Ended support for:

  • Advanced notice: Ending support for several built-in importers in 8.4
  • Advanced notice: Removing Jira CDN dark feature in 8.4
Supported platforms
8.2/4.2

Added support for:

  • Java 11
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2017

Ended support for:

  • 32-bit installers
Supported platforms
8.1/4.1No changesSupported platforms
8.0/4.0

Added support for:

  • Apache Tomcat 8.5.35 (replacing 8.5.32). Added in Jira 8.0.1.

Ended support for:

  • PostgreSQL 9.3
  • MySQL 5.5
Supported platforms
7.13/3.16

Added support for:

  • OpenJDK 8
Supported platforms
7.12/3.15

Added support for:

  • Apache Tomcat 8.5.32 (replacing 8.5.29)
Supported platforms
7.11/3.14

Added support for:

  • Apache Tomcat 8.5.29 (replacing 8.5.6)
Supported platforms
7.10/3.13No changes.Supported platforms
7.9/3.12

Added support for:

  • Microsoft SQL Server 2016
Supported platforms
7.8/3.11No changes.Supported platforms
7.7/3.10No changes.Supported platforms
7.6/3.9No changes.Supported platforms
7.5/3.8No changes.Supported platforms
7.4/3.7

Added support for:

  • PostgreSQL 9.6

Ended support for:

  • PostgreSQL 9.2
Supported platforms


Technical upgrade notes

This table is a high-level summary of the Jira Software (7.4 to 8.4), and Jira Service Desk (3.7 to 4.4) upgrade notes. You should read the full upgrade notes before upgrading.

8.8/4.8

Important notes:

  • The new audit log requires that we migrate your current audit log entries. This might take some time, but it will be done in the background.
  • We've enabled Garbage First Garbage Collection (G1 GC) for Jira instances running on Java 11.

Jira software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

8.7/4.7

Important notes:

  • PostgreSQL 11 support
  • OpenID Connect support for Jira Data Center
  • Changes in the issue collector
  • Disabling HTML in custom fields description
  • Changing how agents are treated in SLAs and automation rules
  • Changed default behavior of sharing new requests with the customer’s organization

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

8.6/4.6

Important notes:

  • API change for JXM monitoring
  • Support for PostgreSQL 10
  • New JVM code cache check
  • New information in the audit log
  • Transferring custom modifications from old Jira files

  • Better support for reply emails from Outlook by mailhandlers

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

8.5/4.5

Important notes:

  • This is the last release to support IE 11

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

8.4/4.4

Important notes:

  • To maximize your data security we’ve made the Public Sharing feature OFF by default. We also recommend that you revise your filter, dashboards and user permissions. 
  • We’ve introduced extra security measures to make issue attachments and keys safe and inaccessible for anonymous users.
  • To help Outlook users respond to Jira notifications we've improved the RegexCommentHandler UI to make it easier to set it up properly. We also advise that you don't use the NonQuotedCommentHandler as it doesn't work with html or rich text emails.
  • Email notifications will be batched by default. You can still disable the feature and the feature will remain disabled if you disabled it in a previous version of Jira.
  • We've introduced a new way of generating user keys for new users to reduce the number of places we store personal data. All user keys for new users (no changes for existing users) have the following format: JIRAUSER10100.
  • If you choose to use one of the new supported databases, Oracle 18c or 19c, you need to download a new JDBC driver. See upgrade notes for details.
  • We're upgrading Tomcat to version 8.5.42.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

8.3/4.3

Important notes:

  • Jira is now bundled with AdoptOpenJDK 8 instead of Oracle's JDK. If you're installing Jira manually, you need to install JDK.
  • We have upgraded the atlassian-jslibs plugin from version 1.2.5 to 1.4.1 and are now bundling React 16.8.6, ReactDOM 16.8.6 factory, and Marionette 4.1.2 with Jira. 
  • When you upgrade you need to reapply any custom changes you've made to your old Jira files to the same files in the upgraded version. We will show you a list of files with custom changes.
  • To fix issues importing a backup from Jira Cloud into Jira Server, we needed to change the database column size. Now, Jira might start up slower after upgrade, especially if you're using MySQL database.
  • You can now encrypt your database password stored in the dbconfig.xml file.
  • We improved the cluster lock mechanism in Jira DC by introducing lock timeouts. When a node loses a cluster lock it will be automatically recoverable without any actions from administrator.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

8.2/4.1

Important notes:

  • We've upgraded the Microsoft JDBC driver, bundled with Jira, to 7.2.1. This versions is required for Java 11 support.
  • Jira installers are now bundled with AdoptOpenJDK JRE 8 instead of Oracle JDK. If you're using the installer, check your Java version after the upgrade, as Jira might have switched to AdoptOpenJDK.


Apps changes...

We've made some look and feel changes to the help center and customer portal. This is the first round of improvements aimed at making the customer experience both simple and polished.

In order to do this, we've had to make some changes to the frontend codebase and this may impact third-party apps.

What's the potential impact?

There's two things to be aware of:

  • layout changes may impact how your app looks within the customer portal
  • the customer portal now loads routes asynchronously, which can impact previously available globals.

What you need to do

In 4.2, your app might be impacted by these changes if no action is taken.

Steps to take:

  1. Check that the dependencies your app needs are specified in your web resources. When checking this, consider if these dependencies are necessary, or if they're negatively impacting load-time performance. You can use https://bitbucket.org/atlassianlabs/atlassian-webresource-webpack-plugin to help achieve this.
  2. Check that your app works 'as expected' within the new layout. When the service desk admin activates the new layout, the <body> element will contain the class custom-portal-layout-flag.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

8.1/4.1

Important notes:

  • We are deprecating 32-bit installers, and they will be removed in the upcoming release.
  • We are deprecating the CDN dark feature, and are planning to remove it in the upcoming release. We'll replace it with an official CDN support for Jira Data Center.


Apps changes...

We've made some look and feel changes to the help center and customer portal. This is the first round of improvements aimed at making the customer experience both simple and polished.

In order to do this, we've had to make some changes to the frontend codebase and this may impact third-party apps.

What's the potential impact?

There's two things to be aware of:

  • layout changes may impact how your app looks within the customer portal
  • the customer portal now loads routes asynchronously, which can impact previously available globals.

What you need to do

In Jira Service Desk 4.1, your app should work as expected, but you'll need to check your dependencies and take the recommended action outlined below. In 4.2, your app might be impacted by these changes if no action is taken.

Steps to take:

  1. Check that the dependencies your app needs are specified in your web resources. When checking this, consider if these dependencies are necessary, or if they're negatively impacting load-time performance. You can use https://bitbucket.org/atlassianlabs/atlassian-webresource-webpack-plugin to help achieve this.
  2. Check that your app works 'as expected' within the new layout. When the service desk admin activates the new layout, the <body> element will contain the class custom-portal-layout-flag.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

8.0/4.0

Important notes:

Index changes...
  • Incompatible index: Due to the upgrade of the library responsible for the Jira index, your current index will become incompatible. You'll need to create a new index by reindexing Jira after the upgrade.
  • Index location changes: Starting from Jira 8.0, the Jira index will be stored in a new location: <Jira-home-directory>/caches/indexesV1.
  • Automatic reindex: Because of the above changes, Jira will trigger an automatic reindex after the upgrade, which might mean you'll need to reindex twice following the upgrade. Since this might be really time-consuming for large Jira instances, you can disable the automatic reindex, and run it manually whenever you're ready.
Apps changes...
  • Incompatible apps: You'll need to disable all apps that are incompatible with the new version before the upgrade. Incompatible apps might block the upgrade or the Jira startup after the upgrade.
Other changes...
  • Reduced logging: Application log output ( atlassian-jira.log ) is no longer mirrored in the Tomcat log file, catalina.out , to preserve the disk space.

  • Jira needs more memory: We've increased the default heap size available to Jira to 2GB. Note that this change requires extra steps if you're using 32-bit systems.

  • Zero downtime upgrades: This upgrade method won't be available when upgrading from Jira 7.x to Jira 8.x. Once you're on Jira 8.x, you can use it to upgrade to any later version.
End of support...

In Jira Service Desk 4.0, we've removed com.atlassian.fugue, and updated our APIs to use Core Java Data types and Exceptions. We’ve introduced this change to make it easier to develop on Jira Service Desk.

What you'll need to do

Before using Core Java Data types and Exceptions, update any scripts, integrations, or apps that make requests to endpoints returning com.atlassian.fugue. This stops them breaking after the update.

Read our Java API docs and REST API docs to learn how.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

7.13/3.16

Important notes:

  • After upgrading Apache Tomcat to 8.5.32, we've added new properties to the server.xml file. Make sure you don't copy the old files to the new Jira version, but add the missing properties (or copy your customizations to the new file).
  • New properties, controlling the JVM code cache, have been added to the setenv.sh / .bat file.
  • Jira Service Desk 3.16 has deprecated the use of com.atlassian.fugue. In Jira Service Desk 4.0, we'll be permanently removing it and updating our APIs to use Core Java Data types and Exceptions instead.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

7.12/3.15

Important notes:

  • Jira Service Desk 3.15 has deprecated the use of com.atlassian.fugue. In Jira Service Desk 4.0, we'll be permanently removing it and updating our APIs to use Core Java Data types and Exceptions instead.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

7.11/3.14

Important notes:

  • We've upgraded Apache Tomcat to 8.5.29. There might be some changes to Tomcat config files, so make sure you don't copy the old files to the new Jira version. See upgrade notes for details.
  • We support IPv6, but recommend that you use the mixed mode (IPv4 + IPv6). If your systems are IPv6 only, with IPv4 disabled, some Jira features won't work.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

7.10/3.13No important changes.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

7.9/3.12

Important notes:

  • Jira Data Center changes cache replication to asynchronous. No immediate actions are required, but make sure you read about this change, and check whether you need to provide extra disk space in the local home directory on each node.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

7.8/3.11

Important notes:

  • Oracle JDBC driver is no longer shipped with Jira. You'll need to download it from the Oracle website, and copy to your Jira installation directory (/lib).

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

7.7/3.10

Important notes:

  • Oracle JDBC driver is no longer shipped with Jira. You'll need to download it from the Oracle website, and copy to your Jira installation directory (/lib).
  • Account verification emails are sent out to Jira Service Desk customers when requests are raised by email. After the upgrade, project administrators can disable these account verification emails.

Known issues:

  • A fix for duplicated job IDs requires extra steps in some instances, just to be sure (checking the database if the index was created; restarting your Jira instance.)

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

7.6/3.9

Important notes:

  • Priority schemes (UI changes). We've made significant changes to how priorities are managed in Jira, but these changes are only available from Jira Service Desk 3.9.4.
  • We're no longer shipping the Oracle JDBC driver with Jira. You'll need to download it from the Oracle site and move to the /lib directory in the Jira installation directory.

Known issues:

  • A fix for duplicated job IDs requires extra steps in some instances, just to be sure (checking the database if the index was created; restarting your Jira instance.)

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

7.5/3.8

Important notes:

  • New JDBC driver for Microsoft SQL Server requires a new URL. If you didn't modify the original URL, you can fix it with Jira configuration tool. If you customized the URL, you might need to change it manually.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk upgrade notes

7.4/3.7

Important notes:

  • New options added to the startup files to enable garbage collection. Just a heads up, no actions required.

Jira Software upgrade notes

Jira Service Desk 3.7 upgrade notes


All ready?

Head back to the landing page, and choose your upgrade method or see our nifty upgrade checklist.

Go to landing page

Last modified on Jun 26, 2020

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