Suggested Upgrade Path from Gerrit 3.8.1 to 3.13.x/3.14.x

[Naveen kandula]

We are currently running Gerrit 3.8.1 and planning to upgrade to 3.13 or 3.14.
What is the recommended upgrade path?

Is direct upgrade from 3.8.1 → 3.14 supported, or is step-by-step upgrade through intermediate versions recommended (3.9.x → 3.10.x → 3.11.x → 3.12.x → 3.13.x/3.14.x)?

Also, what are the important considerations regarding Java version, reindexing, and plugin compatibility?

Kindly share your suggestions or best practices based on community experience.

Thanks in advance.

[Luca Milanesio]

Hi Naveen,

> On 6 Jun 2026, at 09:22, Naveen kandula <naveenk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> We are currently running Gerrit 3.8.1 and planning to upgrade to 3.13 or 3.14.
> What is the recommended upgrade path?

You can look at the “Upgrade” section of the release notes of the versions between 3.8.1 and 3.14.

- https://www.gerritcodereview/3.9.html
- https://www.gerritcodereview/3.10.html
- https://www.gerritcodereview/3.11.html
- https://www.gerritcodereview/3.12.html
- https://www.gerritcodereview/3.13.html <https://www.gerritcodereview/3.1.html>
- https://www.gerritcodereview/3.14.html

> Is direct upgrade from 3.8.1 → 3.14 supported, or is step-by-step upgrade through intermediate versions recommended (3.9.x → 3.10.x → 3.11.x → 3.12.x → 3.13.x/3.14.x)?

Step-by-step is recommended. If you want to know why, please watch the presentations on Gerrit upgrades at [1].

> Also, what are the important considerations regarding Java version, reindexing, and plugin compatibility?

Again, look at the release notes. Each Gerrit version has associated Java version recommendations.
Reindexing may or may not be neecessary. Again, look at the release notes.

> Kindly share your suggestions or best practices based on community experience.

I always do and I share with the community in the summits and meet-ups. All record and available for you to watch at [1].


> Thanks in advance.

No problem.

Luca

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLySCWiWz9cNum6wmySRlIRLkmXdh_jBoT

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[Luca Milanesio]

*NOTE: resending because of a typo on the URLs*

Hi Naveen,

> On 6 Jun 2026, at 09:22, Naveen kandula <naveenk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

> We are currently running Gerrit 3.8.1 and planning to upgrade to 3.13 or 3.14.
> What is the recommended upgrade path?

You can look at the “Upgrade” section of the release notes of the versions between 3.8.1 and 3.14.

- https://www.gerritcodereview.com/3.9.html
- https://www.gerritcodereview.com/3.10.html
- https://www.gerritcodereview.com/3.11.html
- https://www.gerritcodereview.com/3.12.html
- https://www.gerritcodereview.com/3.13.html
- https://www.gerritcodereview.com/3.14.html

> Is direct upgrade from 3.8.1 → 3.14 supported, or is step-by-step upgrade through intermediate versions recommended (3.9.x → 3.10.x → 3.11.x → 3.12.x → 3.13.x/3.14.x)?

Step-by-step is recommended. If you want to know why, please watch the presentations on Gerrit upgrades at [1].

> Also, what are the important considerations regarding Java version, reindexing, and plugin compatibility?

Again, look at the release notes. Each Gerrit version has associated Java version recommendations.
Reindexing may or may not be neecessary. Again, look at the release notes.

> Kindly share your suggestions or best practices based on community experience.

[Antoine Musso]

Hello,

There are breaking changes requiring ajustements to the configuration, plugins, JavaScript plugins, bots listening for events etc. Luckily they are well described in each versions release notes. Therefor to avoid having to address all of them in one go, we upgrade Gerrit one version at a time.

The Web UI also has some changes and too many of them could cause users to be confused. It is probably easier to them if they get introduced smaller set of UI modifications.

We do the upgrade Java or change of the base OS as independent operations.

Overall the idea is that if something is breaking, it is easier to pinpoint the reason (Java version, an OS lib, or the specific Gerrit minor version).   For example starting with a Gerrit 3.10 we would:

- Debian Bullseye > Bookworm
- Switch Java from 17 to 21
- Upgrade Gerrit to 3.11 (supports Java 21)
- Upgrade Gerrit to 3.12 (requires Java 21)
- Upgrade Gerrit to 3.13

All of them as individual maintenances.  Of course the plugins have to be upgraded iteratively as well.

We do backup the git repositories, cache and secondaries indices (and maybe others).

The release notes are a blessing, they are quite exhaustive regarding what is new and require ajustements.  https://www.gerritcodereview.com/releases-readme.html (and check the detailed notes of each version that are linked from that page).

-- 
Antoine "hashar" Musso
Release Engineering