Full-stack Platform releases every 4 weeks

As you know, we usually release 3 Platform versions a year and a new Indicium and Universal UI every 4 weeks. What you might not know, is that internally we also release a new Platform version every 4 weeks. Effectively shipping a full-stack Platform increment every Sprint. These full-stack Platform versions are applied to the Thinkwise Cloud as well.

Starting with version 2026.1.11, we intend to publicly release a full-stack Short-Term Support (STS) Platform version every 4 weeks, in addition to the 3 Long-Term Support (LTS) Platform releases. This comes with a few noticeable changes:

• Release Notes will be bundled in a single Product Update
• Universal UI Release Candidate will cease to exist (nightly versions of our Develop branch are available in TCP to test bugfixes before official release)
• All components are made available at the same time in TCP

Upgrade flexibility

On the topic of releases, there are a few very unique concepts applied by Thinkwise that you might not be fully aware of:

Backwards compatibility of Indicium and Universal UI: the latest Indicium and Universal UI versions are always backwards compatible with all supported Platform versions. This means you get to enjoy runtime-specific bugfixes and features, even if you are not on the latest Platform version.

Example: version 2026.1.11 also works with Platform version 2024.2.

Zero-downtime deployments of Indicium and Universal UI: by using horizontal scaling in combination with Redis cache you can easily upgrade your Indicium and Universal UI versions without any downtime or service interruption for your end users. You can use the Thinkwise Container Registry and Health check endpoints to automate spinning up new versions and winding down old versions.

Upgrade IAM without upgrading your Application: upgrading your environments to the latest Platform version can safely be done without having to upgrade your own Application. Thanks to this approach, Platform features are readily available and can be utilized without having to change your Application (customized login pages for example). This approach also allows you to separate Platform-related upgrades from Application-related upgrades, effectively giving you more flexibility in how and when you perform technical and functional maintenance on your environments.

What’s in it for you?

While there is no need for you to upgrade to these STS versions of the Software Factory, the Intelligent Application Manager and the Upcycler, they do bring added value:

Earlier value delivery: new Platform features are at your disposal way earlier. As soon as full-stack development is finished, we will release a new feature in the STS Platform version.

Reduced risk: smaller changes mean fewer things that can go wrong at once. And if something breaks unexpectedly, it’s much easier to identify and fix the issue fast.

Faster feedback: those of you really waiting for a feature can not only use it earlier, but also provide us with valuable feedback that allows us to iterate and improve the solution further in subsequent versions.

No breaking changes: we also commit to introducing no breaking changes between subsequent STS versions, ensuring you can upgrade your Intelligent Application Manager on Production without worrying about application malfunctioning.  

While we believe that upgrading a Platform version should merely be a next > next > finish exercise with the Thinkwise Deployment Center, we know that it is sometimes experienced very differently by our customers. What else we should improve to make upgrading a smooth and fast experience?

Expected 2026 release calendar