LimeSurvey roadmap
From LimeSurvey Manual
General
This page lists current Limesurvey releases, future development, and release goals.
Goals cannot be fulfilled by itself so if you want to give a helping hand or contribute new features yourself please get in touch!
Version Support Time Frames
For several reasons, we dropped the Long-term-support (LTS) definition for selected versions. Instead, each version will have support periods as defined here.
Definition:
- Normal support: Receives security fixes and non-breaking changes & updates at last two years from first release
- Extended support: Receives only security fixes - at least one year on top of normal support. Updates may only be available if ComfortUpdate is used. In some cases, we may extend this period at our discretion if needed.
Versions older than LimeSurvey 3.0
- These versions will not receive new features or updates
Limesurvey 3.x - First release: Dec 2017
Support time frame:
- Community Edition: Extended support available until end of July 2023
- Cloud: Supported until end of November 2023
LimeSurvey 4.x - First release: Jan 2020
Discontinued. Version 4.x will not receive any updates.
Limesurvey 5.x - First release: May 2021
Support time frame:
- Community Edition:
- Normal support until May 2023
- Extended support until May 2024
- Cloud:
- Supported until May 2024
Limesurvey 6.x - First release: Apr 2023
Support time frame:
- Community Edition:
- Normal support until April 2025
- Extended support until April 2026
- Cloud:
- Supported until April 2026
Release details
Limesurvey 3.x
Major changes:
- Using Twig as template engine.
- Possible for templates (now called themes) to inherit options and files from each other.
- Question templates (still work-in-progress).
- New side-menu and enhanced admin interface.
Limesurvey 5.0
- Updated interface
- Possible to install plugins and question themes via ZIP-file
- Update checks for plugins available in LimeStore
- Encrypted fields
- New plugin events : ExpressionManagerStart and SetVariableExpressionEnd allowing to manage expression by plugin.
- Survey Group Permissions
- More...
LimeSurvey 5.1
- Add RPC function to delete a response using its ID (#1928) (arnaudbore)
- Ability to export to SPSS .sav format (#1877) (Adam Zammit)
- Multiple UX fixes
LimeSurvey 5.2
- No new major features, mostly GUI fixes.
LimeSurvey 5.3
- No big new features, mostly internal improvements, e.g. database updates split into multiple classes and more PSR-12 fixes.
LimeSurvey 5.4
- New feature to deal with email notifications that failed to send out
LimeSurvey 5.5
- New feature #8436: Enable / disable users and fields to manage users (#2636) (Gabriel Jenik)
- New feature #8239: Allow for user friendly survey URLS (#2218) (Gabriel Jenik)
- New feature #18375: [security] Some plugin settings need encryption (#2645) (Gabriel Jenik)
- New feature #18204: Extend form via plugin (Olle Haerstedt)
LimeSurvey 5.6
- New feature #07641: Options to use Y/N conversion in RemoteControl API export
LimeSurvey 6.0
Breaking changes:
- The event afterSurveyCompleted is now fired in preview mode as well, with responseId = null
- Due to the conversion of LimeSurvey to Bootstrap 5, custom survey themes will have to be revised
- We only provide one admin theme at the moment, the previous variations have been removed
- New feature: Converted the application to the Bootstrap 5 framework
- New feature: Implemented a new administration theme
- New feature: Upgraded Twig from 1.0 to 3.0
- New feature #18453: PHP 8.1 compatibility (#2878) (Gabriel Jenik)
- New feature: Add get_available_site_settings RPC method (#2579) (Edgar R. M)
- New feature #18382: Fire afterSurveyCompleted event in preview mode (Olle Haerstedt)
- New feature #16619: Allow calling get_uploaded_files() remote control function by response ID (#2363) (Gabriel Jenik)
- New feature #18178: Add Quota CRUD RPC methods (#2458) (Edgar R. M)
LimeSurvey 6.1
Released May 22nd 2023.
New features:
- Allow to move question inside group and group order with activated survey
LimeSurvey 6.2
Released 1st of August 2023.
New features:
- New survey theme
LimeSurvey 6.3
Released 16th of October 2023.
New features:
- Google OAuth plugin for emails
LimeSurvey 6.4
Released 18th December 2023.
New features:
- Add column "active" to users, to be able to activate or deactivate users
- Preview survey in modal
LimeSurvey 6.5
Released March 19th, 2024
New features:
- Updated internal REST API with more functions
LimeSurvey 6.6
Scheduled for May 2024.
Current release schedule
A patch (bug fix) release is released every Monday, for all supported versions.
A minor release (new features without breaking backward compatibility) is released every 8 weeks, approximately.
A major release (new features that will break backward compatibility, e.g. dropping support for PHP versions or browsers) will be a major release if it breaks backwards compatibility in some way.
Please also see the manual about the release process.