The FreeBSD Project initiates the final testing cycle for its next stable release, while gearing up for a major leap with FreeBSD 15.0 by the end of 2025.
The FreeBSD Project has officially published the first beta of FreeBSD 14.3, marking the start of the release process for what will become the next stable version of this long-standing Unix-like operating system. The final release is expected in early June and will be supported through June 2026.
FreeBSD 14.3 continues the project’s focus on incremental stability improvements, hardware support enhancements, and bug fixes within the 14.x branch, while the community’s attention is also increasingly turning toward the upcoming FreeBSD 15.0, a major release planned for December 2025.
🛠️ Release Timeline and Architecture Support
The FreeBSD 14.3 release cycle will include:
- Three Beta releases
- One Release Candidate (RC)
- A final 14.3-RELEASE, anticipated for early June
The first beta release, FreeBSD 14.3-BETA1, is available for a wide range of architectures, including:
- amd64, i386
- powerpc, powerpc64, powerpc64le
- armv7, aarch64 (with RPI, Pine64, Rock64, and others)
- riscv64
Installer ISOs and memory stick images can be downloaded at:
🔗 https://download.freebsd.org/releases/ISO-IMAGES/14.3/
☁️ Cloud, Virtualization & Containers
In addition to standard installation images, FreeBSD 14.3-BETA1 offers support for modern deployment environments:
- Virtual machine images: QCOW2, VHD, VMDK, and RAW formats for amd64, i386, aarch64, and riscv64.
- OCI container images: Designed for static, dynamic, and runtime workloads. Easily loaded into Docker/Podman or pushed to registries using
skopeo. - Amazon EC2 AMIs: Available via AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store.
- Vagrant images: Ready-to-use base boxes hosted on HashiCorp Atlas for rapid local testing.
📅 Looking Ahead: FreeBSD 15.0 in December
The spotlight is gradually shifting to FreeBSD 15.0, a release expected to deliver major architectural changes and feature updates. The tentative schedule includes:
- Alphas starting in September
- Weekly Betas throughout October
- Three RCs in November
- Final release in December 2025
FreeBSD 15 is set to be one of the most impactful releases in the project’s history.
🔄 Upgrade Process
Users on FreeBSD 12.x, 13.x or earlier 14.x releases can perform binary upgrades using freebsd-update:
# freebsd-update fetch
# freebsd-update install
# freebsd-update upgrade -r 14.3-BETA1After rebooting, repeat freebsd-update install twice—once for userland updates and once to clean up obsolete files.
For major version upgrades, it is recommended to rebuild all applications, or install compatibility libraries like compat12x.
🧪 Contribute & Test
The FreeBSD Project encourages developers, system administrators, and testers to download and validate the beta release, reporting issues via Bugzilla or the freebsd-stable mailing list.
With continued development, strong community involvement, and wide platform support, FreeBSD 14.3 is shaping up to be a robust step forward—and a solid bridge toward the transformative FreeBSD 15.0.
For full technical details, visit:
🔗 https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.3R/schedule/
