Canonical has just taken a step that few enterprise Linux vendors dare to take: extending the lifecycle of Ubuntu LTS releases to 15 years thanks to the expansion of the Ubuntu Pro Legacy add-on. Starting with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr), any company can now keep a system in production for a decade and a half with security patches, compliance tooling and optional support, without having to face disruptive migrations every few years.
For those managing critical infrastructure, regulated systems or hardware that can’t be easily replaced, this is not a minor commercial tweak – it’s a strategic shift.
What exactly has Canonical announced?
Until now, the support scheme for an Ubuntu LTS looked like this:
- 5 years of standard security maintenance.
- 5 additional years of Expanded Security Maintenance (ESM) via Ubuntu Pro.
- 2 extra years of Legacy add-on, which Canonical introduced in 2024.
With the new decision, the Legacy add-on grows from 2 to 5 years. That means the total support window for an LTS expands to:
5 years (standard) + 5 years (ESM/Pro) + 5 years (Legacy) = 15 years of lifecycle.
The change applies retroactively from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. In practice, Ubuntu 14.04 LTS is now supported until April 2029, fifteen years after its launch. During that entire period, organisations can keep receiving security patches without being forced to revalidate applications, certifications or hardware.
In addition:
- Ubuntu Pro maintains its commitment to patch the base system, kernel and key open source components, backporting critical, high and a selection of medium CVEs.
- Break/fix support remains an optional add-on: when something breaks in production, incidents can be escalated to Canonical’s support team.
- The Legacy add-on kicks in after the first 10 years (5 standard + 5 ESM) and is billed at a 50% premium over standard Ubuntu Pro pricing.
For many organisations —banking, industry, healthcare, telco, public sector— the message is clear: Canonical assumes there are workloads that will live 10, 12 or 15 years, and is adjusting its business model to that reality.
Table: how the Ubuntu LTS lifecycle looks with 15 years of support
From a system administrator’s perspective, the scheme can be summarised as follows (end-of-support dates are approximate based on the 15-year policy; the only one explicitly confirmed in the announcement is 14.04 → 2029):
| Ubuntu LTS version | Release year | Standard support (5 years) | ESM / Ubuntu Pro (years 6–10) | Legacy add-on (years 11–15) | Approx. end of support with Legacy* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14.04 LTS | 2014 | 2014–2019 | 2019–2024 | 2024–2029 | April 2029 (confirmed) |
| 16.04 LTS | 2016 | 2016–2021 | 2021–2026 | 2026–2031 | ~2031 (estimated) |
| 18.04 LTS | 2018 | 2018–2023 | 2023–2028 | 2028–2033 | ~2033 (estimated) |
| 20.04 LTS | 2020 | 2020–2025 | 2025–2030 | 2030–2035 | ~2035 (estimated) |
| 22.04 LTS | 2022 | 2022–2027 | 2027–2032 | 2032–2037 | ~2037 (estimated) |
| 24.04 LTS | 2024 | 2024–2029 | 2029–2034 | 2034–2039 | ~2039 (estimated) |
*Dates marked as estimated depend on Canonical maintaining the Pro + Legacy model for future LTS releases, but they follow the announced 15-year pattern.
For system owners, this table translates into something very concrete: you can align major migrations with hardware refresh cycles (which often are already in the 7–10 year range) and with accounting/amortisation periods.
Comparison: Ubuntu vs. other enterprise Linux distributions
Canonical’s move only makes full sense in context. How does Ubuntu stack up against other established enterprise Linux options?
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)
Red Hat has long offered a 10-year lifecycle for each major RHEL release: a period of full support followed by extended maintenance, which together add up to a decade. Product documentation for RHEL 7, for example, explicitly mentions “the ten-year life cycle of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7”.
On top of that, Red Hat offers various extended lifecycle support programmes for specific versions, but the general message to customers is: 10 years of security and maintenance per major release, with optional extensions.
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES)
In SUSE’s case, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server provides around 10 years of general support, which can be extended via Extended Support programmes to reach roughly 13 years of total lifecycle for versions such as SLES 15 (summing General Support + Extended Support).
The philosophy is similar to Red Hat’s, but with a slightly longer extended tail for many editions.
RHEL-compatible distributions (Rocky, Alma, Oracle Linux)
RHEL-compatible enterprise distributions —Oracle Linux, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux— typically align their lifecycle with the corresponding RHEL version, effectively offering around 10 years of security and bug-fix support, plus their own commercial options and extensions where applicable.
The bigger picture
In a simplified table, without going into every vendor’s commercial nuances, the landscape looks like this:
| Distribution | Typical standard support | Common extensions | Max. lifecycle (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ubuntu LTS + Pro + Legacy | 5 years | 5 years ESM + 5 years Legacy | 15 years |
| RHEL | 10 years | Various extended support programmes | ~10+ years, version-dependent |
| SUSE Linux Enterprise | 10 years | Extended Support | ~13 years |
| Rocky / Alma / Oracle Linux | ~10 years (RHEL-like) | Vendor-specific/commercial extensions | ~10+ years, in line with RHEL |
The takeaway for a system administrator is straightforward: Ubuntu now leads in advertised lifecycle length, with a notable advantage over the rest, at least on paper.
What this means for system administrators
Beyond the eye-catching “15 years of support” headline, there are several practical implications:
1. Fewer forced migrations, more planning
In many environments, a major OS migration entails:
- Long maintenance windows.
- Validation of internal and vendor applications.
- Testing with hardware, storage, HCI and appliance vendors.
- Hard-to-predict regression risks.
With a 15-year lifecycle, it becomes possible to reduce the number of large migration projects over a system’s lifetime and, more importantly, to execute them when they make sense technically and for the business, not just because “support is ending”.
2. Continuous security without breaking compatibility
The Ubuntu Pro + Legacy model guarantees:
- Backports of critical and high-severity vulnerabilities to the kernel and key userspace packages.
- Coverage of widely used server components (web, databases, common libraries, etc.).
- Compliance and vulnerability-scanning tooling at scale.
In other words, the attack surface can be kept under control without introducing ABI-breaking changes or radical package upgrades that might disrupt legacy applications.
3. Flexibility for regulated environments and legacy hardware
Sectors like industrial, healthcare or government often work with:
- Certified devices only homologated with a specific OS release.
- Software validated by regulators which cannot be altered lightly.
- Isolated or tightly controlled environments with limited Internet access.
For them, having official 12–15-year support is often the difference between:
- Having to redesign a solution halfway through its intended life.
- Or being able to run it to the end of its planned cycle while keeping security current.
4. Not all upside: technical debt and stagnation
Extending support has its downsides:
- Greater technical debt if frameworks, runtimes and application stacks are not modernised.
- Difficulty finding talent willing or able to maintain very old technologies.
- More friction integrating modern solutions (observability, security tooling, containers, etc.) on top of very old bases.
So the message for admins should be nuanced: those 15 years of Ubuntu LTS are a safety net, not an excuse to ignore modernisation.
Conclusion: a move clearly aimed at “operations”
Canonical is sending a clear signal to the enterprise market: it understands real-world lifecycle problems and is willing to support customers with a window that better matches hardware, regulation and long-running projects.
For system administrators, the 15-year extension opens new options:
- Consolidate fewer OS versions in production and simplify the fleet.
- Align migrations with infrastructure refresh cycles.
- Assess total cost of ownership more calmly when comparing distributions.
The decision doesn’t remove the need to modernise, but it does provide a much larger manoeuvring margin to do so on the terms and timelines the business actually needs.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for system administrators
1. What exactly does Ubuntu Pro + Legacy include in terms of security?
It includes continuous security patches for the base OS, kernel and a broad set of userspace packages, with backported fixes for critical, high and selected medium-severity vulnerabilities. It also provides compliance and CVE-scanning tools at scale, designed for corporate and regulated environments.
2. Does Ubuntu Pro + Legacy make sense if we already have our own automation and hardening?
It depends on your context. In large organisations, the cost of maintaining an internal team to backport patches, track CVEs and maintain compliance tooling can easily exceed the price of Ubuntu Pro + Legacy. In smaller or highly specialised environments, it may still be reasonable to keep part of that work in-house.
3. How does the Ubuntu LTS lifecycle compare to Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SUSE Linux Enterprise?
Broadly speaking, Ubuntu LTS with Pro + Legacy goes up to 15 years, while RHEL offers roughly 10 years per major release and SLES can reach around 13 years with extended support. The key difference lies in the last years of life, where Ubuntu offers a longer window for systems that are hard to migrate.
4. Do those 15 years include new features, or just security and bug fixes?
The focus of the ESM and Legacy phases is security and stability, not shipping new features. You should not expect major package upgrades or deep ABI changes at that stage; the goal is to keep systems secure and operational without breaking compatibility with existing applications.
