As highlighted in our roadmap, free support for Vaadin 23 will conclude on March 8th, 2024. From Vaadin 23 and Hilla 1 onwards, our simpler release model ensures that all major versions receive free support for one year after the release of a new major version. We're committed to helping with upgrades and always recommend our users adopt the latest version. This ensures access to new features, better performance, and improved developer productivity.
After the free support period, applications built with Vaadin 23 will continue to function normally; however, they will no longer receive security updates, compatibility patches, or bug fixes. Therefore, we strongly advise upgrading to the most recent major version, Vaadin 24.
For Vaadin 23 users, Prime support will be available until 2027, which is included in the Prime, Enterprise, and Ultimate packages. Following this, Extended Maintenance will be offered from 2027 to 2037. For more information, please see our roadmap.
Want to know more about upgrading and your options?
Contact usWhat are the improvements in Vaadin 24 compared to Vaadin 23?
Vaadin 24 delivers a significant step forward for users of Vaadin Flow with a new technology baseline that includes Java 17, Spring Boot 3, and Jakarta EE 10. This ensures you can continue building Vaadin Flow apps with the latest Java technologies.
In addition, Vaadin 24 brings additional features that aim to enhance the efficiency, ease of use, and flexibility in developing applications, such as;
- Faster build times: Significant improvements in build and start-up times are achieved with a new pre-compiled front-end bundle. This eliminates the need for front-end installation or compilation and dependencies on Node.js, npm/pnpm, and the Vite development server.
- Faster memory cleanup in runtime: Vaadin Flow 24.1 introduced a memory-saving enhancement that efficiently removes UI instances from the server memory once a tab is closed or a page is refreshed. Learn more →
- Component styling enhancements: Vaadin 24 introduces a more straightforward approach to UI styling, featuring full support for the
::part()selector. This allows for the use of regular, non-Shadow-DOM CSS, enabling easier and more flexible styling of UI components. Key improvements include the elimination of complex selectors like:host(),::slotted(), and[part=""], and the ability to structure stylesheets without dividing them per component. Learn more → - Component Locator in DevTools: A new tool in DevTools allows developers to directly click on any UI component in their application and jump to the corresponding code in their IDE, simplifying the development process. Learn more →
- AI Form Filler: Vaadin AI Form Filler is an experimental API that allows developers to easily add AI-powered form-filling capabilities to their applications. Taking unstructured text as input, the API sends the text to ChatGPT with an optimized prompt to extract the relevant information from the text. The API then uses the extracted information to fill in the different types of UI components in the forms. Read the documentation →
- DX improvements: Vaadin 24 features significant Quality-of-Life improvements guided by community feedback. These include enhanced control over query and route parameters, the ability to redirect users to a custom page when access is denied, and a new default I18NProvider. Additionally, it strengthens the pre-compiled bundle feature, making it more comprehensive for various use cases. With Vaadin 24, you can also benefit from the new navigation access control feature, which provides finer control over user access to ensure that only authorized users can access sensitive pages and resources. Learn more →
- Visual Theme Editor: This tool, available in Vaadin 24+, enables editing the theme of Vaadin applications in development mode. You can use it to change the UI component color, font size, and more in views without editing the code. Any changes you make are reflected in real-time, both in the live preview and in your code. Read the documentation →
The way forward
Overall, the upgrade to Vaadin 24 should be easy. In our upgrade guide, you'll find instructions for upgrading from Vaadin 23.
If you choose to keep your project on Vaadin 23, continued support is available and recommended. By subscribing to Vaadin Prime or Ultimate, you will continue to receive security updates for Vaadin 23 until March 2027. Additionally, with a separate Extended Maintenance contract, you can extend these updates beyond that date.
If you have any questions or need guidance on how to proceed, please don't hesitate to contact us. We're here to help you find the best way forward!