Long-time support (LTS) for Spree 3.7 ended on February 4th, 2022. There will be no further upgrades, improvements, optimizations, or security updates for this version. It’s time to consider either upgrading to the greatly improved Spree 4 line or moving to the cloud-based Vendo marketplace platform, which removes all of the headaches associated with self-hosting and version upgrades. Feel free to reach out to us to discuss the next steps.

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Spree 3.7 support ends

Spree 3.7 was released over 3 years ago and has heralded the beginning of the API-first era with the release of Storefront API v2 and a brand new Service Oriented Architecture. It has also done away with customizing Spree-based platforms with decorators through its new painless dependencies system. Now the sun is setting on this once important version of our platform.

What’s worth noting is that underlying Rails 5.1 security support ended 2 years and 5 months ago (25 Aug 2019) and Rails 5.2 security support ends in 3 months and 3 weeks (01 Jun 2022). It’s really time to move on!

There are two options to consider going forward.

Spree 4 upgrade

The first option is the Spree 4 line that has continued the API-first approach going as far as decoupling the storefront from the backend and moving the admin panel to a separate project. This way you’re able to work on the storefront separately from the backend in a headless fashion and also keep the admin panel on any Spree version you choose. Besides the high-performing default Rails storefront, greatly improved in Spree 4, there are now also the modern JavaScript storefronts – Next.js Commerce and Vue Storefront to choose from.

Spree-as-a-Service

The second and, in our opinion, far superior option, is moving straight to Spree-as-a-Service, relieving you of any backend upgrade or maintenance pains once and for all. This cloud-based solution comes with the same functionality as the latest Spree open-source version plus all the SaaS advantages, such as free integrations and new features, no upgrades or maintenance, and effortless scalability. Spree-as-a-Service will allow you to stay up to date with the latest version and focus on the storefront of your choosing – either Rails-based or JS-based.

Spree 5 is coming up

Speaking of the latest versions, Spree 5.0.0 is set to be released in the coming months. Rest assured that we’re always working on a new and improved version whilst you’re upgrading to the latest one. You can’t stop progress.

Conclusions

The key takeaway is that you need to move on and you need to keep up. Whether you choose to continue using Spree open-source or decide to move to Spree-as-a-Service, feel free to reach out and discuss your plans with yours truly, the Spree core team. And last but not least, thank you for your continued support on Spree slack, GitHub, and all of our social media channels.