CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

How often should we anticipate upgrading CivicRM?  And how much time is typically involved in applying an upgrade?
Just trying to understand the scale of the effort if we go the CivicRM route.

the answer to this is it depends

after a final release, we tend to do a release every week or two, and after that its typically every month. You dont have to upgrade on every release unless it a security release or a bug that you want fixed is in the upgrade.

if you dont encounter any bugs and have a good backup process in place, an upgrade should not take more than 15-30 minutes

lobo

This is a tricky question.  From a strict upgrade standpoint, it is easiest to upgrade as new versions come along.  However, every software package has issues and frequently it is best to wait a little and see what types of problems others have with the new versions.  Also, even if the new version is perfect, some people will think they have issues.  Of course by waiting, before long, you may be several versions behind and not sure how you are going to get to the current version.  <sigh>

Also, there may be a difference in strategy between versions that improve functionality and versions that fix security vulnerabilities.

Dave

better choice than what? not sure the question.