# Confluence 8.5 LTS is available now

**URL:** <https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/confluence-8-5-lts-is-available-now/72217>\
**Category:** Confluence Data Center Announcements\
**Tags:** lts-release, confluence-data-center, confluence-server\
**Created:** [August 23, 2023, 12:04am UTC](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/confluence-8-5-lts-is-available-now/72217 "2023-08-23T00:04:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wendy](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/atlassiandeveloper/user_avatar/community.developer.atlassian.com/wendy/32/45485_2.png) [@Wendy](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/u/Wendy)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2023, 12:04am UTC](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/confluence-8-5-lts-is-available-now/72217/1 "2023-08-23T00:04:43Z")

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Hi everyone,

The Confluence 8.5 Long Term Support release is available now.

[Download the latest version](https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/download-archives)

This GA release was made available on 22 August 2023.

To learn more, see [Confluence 8.5 Release Notes](https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Confluence+8.5+Release+Notes).

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**Author:** ![scottohara](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/atlassiandeveloper/user_avatar/community.developer.atlassian.com/scottohara/32/52316_2.png) [@scottohara](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/u/scottohara)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2023, 4:43am UTC](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/confluence-8-5-lts-is-available-now/72217/2 "2023-08-23T04:43:02Z")

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One minor thing we have found, and this could be just a timing issue, or it could be something that wasn’t ever really officially supported, or it could be something that was previously supported but no longer is…

For many years, in our `pom.xml` files for our Confluence apps, we have specified the `confluence.version` and `confluence.data.version` properties as `RELEASE`, e.g.

```xml
<project>
    ...
    <dependencies>...</dependencies>
    <build>....</build>
    <properties>
        <confluence.version>RELEASE</confluence.version>
        <confluence.data.version>RELEASE</confluence.data.version>
        ...
    </properties>
</project>

```

My understanding (not being a particular expert in Maven) is that `RELEASE` (along with `LATEST`) are “metaversions” that point to the latest non-snapshot, and latest snapshot artifacts (respectively).

In practice this has meant that our devs don’t need to update the `pom.xml` every time a new Confluence release is made available.  
Just a quick `atlas-clean && atlas-run` gets them running against whatever the latest published release version is.

At the time of writing (Wednesday 23 August 2023, 14:31 AEST) the `RELEASE` metaversion is still resolving to `confluence-webapp-8.4.2.war`

It is reasonable to assume that `RELEASE` will eventually resolve to `confluence-webapp-8.5.0.war`?  
Or is it not recommended to use metaversions like this, and to explicitly specify a version instead?

(For what it’s worth I discovered an old [Maven 3.x Compatibility Notes](https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/Maven+3.x+Compatibility+Notes#Maven3.xCompatibilityNotes-PluginMetaversionResolution) document from 11 years ago that mentioned metaversions being dropped; so it does sound like we shouldn’t be using these any more).

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**Author:** ![Wendy](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/atlassiandeveloper/user_avatar/community.developer.atlassian.com/wendy/32/45485_2.png) [@Wendy](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/u/Wendy)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2023, 12:53am UTC](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/confluence-8-5-lts-is-available-now/72217/3 "2023-08-28T00:53:09Z")

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Hi @scottohara, I’ve passed your question to the Confluence product team. Here’s their response:

> From the Confluence product side, our plugins don’t use such metadata like RELEASE or LATEST. Our recommendation is to use a concrete version instead.

Does that help? Let me know if not, and I’ll get one of our product devs to chime in directly. Thanks!

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**Author:** ![scottohara](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/atlassiandeveloper/user_avatar/community.developer.atlassian.com/scottohara/32/52316_2.png) [@scottohara](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/u/scottohara)\
**Post date:** [August 28, 2023, 12:54am UTC](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/confluence-8-5-lts-is-available-now/72217/4 "2023-08-28T00:54:07Z")

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Thanks Wendy, that answers my question

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**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/atlassiandeveloper/original/3X/7/8/78672baa5ba80cd9164376457051d0eec038b082.png) [@system](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 27, 2023, 12:54am UTC](https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/confluence-8-5-lts-is-available-now/72217/5 "2023-09-27T00:54:38Z")

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Closed on September 27, 2023, 12:54am UTC

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