.NET 8 and 9 end support today, PostgreSQL 14 follows on Thursday: the November 2026 end-of-life list

What ends, and when

Retirement dates arrive as rows in lifecycle tables rather than as announcements, so a cluster like this one is easy to miss. Taken together, the four weeks from 13 October to 12 November 2026 retire a runtime, a database, an office suite and a capacity product. Every date below comes from the vendor's own page.

The October Microsoft retirements were the larger set, and we covered the full list in everything Microsoft retired on 13 October 2026. This piece picks up what has happened since, and what is still two days away.

Why these four belong together

They are different kinds of product, and the buyer question is the same for each: once the vendor stops fixing it, what is the cost of staying, and is anyone paying it without knowing? For .NET and PostgreSQL the cost is risk. For a managed database it is also a line on the invoice. For AI Builder it is a renewal that may quietly fail or quietly convert. For Office LTSC it is both risk and the fact that Microsoft's preferred replacement is a subscription.

What "end of support" means, in the vendors' own words

Microsoft's .NET policy defines end of life as "the date when Microsoft no longer provides fixes, updates, or online technical assistance", and adds that using out-of-support versions "may put your applications, application data, and computing environment at risk". For the Office LTSC products, Microsoft says it "no longer provides updates, security fixes, or technical support", and that organisations can keep using them but may be exposed to "security vulnerabilities, compliance risks, and reduced reliability".

The PostgreSQL project is plainer still: it supports a major version for five years, after which "a final minor version will be released and the software will then be unsupported (end-of-life)".

None of these stops software running, and software that keeps working gives nobody a reason to look at it.

.NET 8 and .NET 9: two releases, one end date

Microsoft's .NET support table now lists both .NET 8 and .NET 9 as out of support, each with an end date of 10 November 2026. Both received a final patch the same day: 8.0.34 and 9.0.23.

Why a two-year-old STS and a three-year-old LTS end together

The policy explains it. "LTS releases get free support and patches for three years. STS releases get free support and patches for two years." .NET 8 shipped in November 2023, so three years ends in November 2026. .NET 9 shipped a year later, so two years ends at the same point. The same arithmetic means .NET 10 and .NET 11 also share an end date, 14 November 2028.

So there is no cheap hop: a team on .NET 9 has the same deadline as a team on .NET 8, and both move to 10 or 11.

LTS or STS for the next move

Because .NET 10 and .NET 11 both end on 14 November 2028, the usual reason to prefer LTS, a longer runway, does not apply this cycle. The choice comes down to whether you want the newer runtime now. .NET 10 has a year of patches behind it, at 10.0.15; .NET 11 shipped today at 11.0.0. For a production estate with limited test capacity, the release with a year of fixes is the conservative choice. For a team that upgrades every year anyway, 11 costs nothing extra in support terms.

The patch requirement most teams overlook

Microsoft's policy says customers "need the latest patch update installed to qualify for support", for both LTS and STS. An application on .NET 10 that has not been patched since the spring is, for support purposes, in the same position as one on .NET 8. Upgrading the major version and then neglecting monthly patches buys the paperwork and none of the protection.

Tooling rarely blocks the upgrade. Both Visual Studio and JetBrains Rider target current .NET releases; the effort lives in dependencies, breaking changes and regression testing, which is where the planning time should go.

PostgreSQL 14: community end of life on 12 November

The PostgreSQL versioning page lists PostgreSQL 14's first release as 30 September 2021 and its final release date as 12 November 2026, which is Thursday. The project releases minor versions at least once every three months, and the November minor, 14.25, is due the same day.

The page does not name 14.25 as the final release. What it says is the policy: after five years "a final minor version will be released and the software will then be unsupported". On that policy, the release on 12 November is expected to be the last for 14, and anything found afterwards will not be fixed upstream.

Which version to move to

Moving from 14 to 15 buys one year before the same exercise repeats in November 2027. Moving to 17 buys three years, to November 2029, and 18 buys four, to November 2030. A major upgrade costs about the same effort whatever the target, so the longest runway is usually the better buy. The case for 17 over 18 is the same as for .NET 10 over 11: a longer run of minor releases behind it, and wider support across extensions and managed services.

Self-hosted versus managed

If you run PostgreSQL yourself, Thursday is the date that matters: there will be no further community patches for 14. If you run it on a managed service, the provider's calendar takes over, and that calendar usually comes with a meter. That difference is the subject of the next section, and it is where the money is.

Teams weighing a move to a different managed provider as part of the upgrade can compare Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS, or newer serverless options such as Neon and Supabase; our PostgreSQL alternatives page covers the wider field, and MySQL versus PostgreSQL is there for anyone reconsidering the engine itself. The databases category lists the rest.

What it costs to stay on PostgreSQL 14 in the cloud

Managed providers do not drop support on the community date. They extend it, and from a set point they charge for it.

Amazon RDS: free until February, then billed per vCPU

The Amazon RDS release calendar sets out the PostgreSQL 14 timeline:

So RDS customers have three and a half months of standard support after the community stops, and AWS says it will support further 14.x minor versions the community releases before then. After 28 February 2027, instances still on 14 move into Extended Support, where AWS ships its own patched builds; it already does this for 11, 12 and 13.

AWS's pricing page works its example through PostgreSQL 12 in US East (Ohio): $0.100 per vCPU-hour in years one and two, rising to $0.200 per vCPU-hour from year three. Rates vary by region, so treat these as indicative and check your own region on the RDS pricing page. Applied to PostgreSQL 14 at those rates:

That is on top of the normal instance charge. A ten-instance estate left on 14 for the whole of 2027's ten billable months (March to December) pays about $29,200 for the privilege of not upgrading yet.

We set out how this mechanism behaves in the MySQL 8.0 piece, where Extended Support started billing on 1 August 2026: enrolment is automatic, nothing about the database changes, and the only symptom is a new line on the invoice. PostgreSQL 14 is on the same path, with a date in March rather than August.

Google Cloud SQL: three months, then a paid tier

Google Cloud SQL describes the same model with different numbers. An instance enters extended support when its major version reaches the Cloud SQL end-of-life date, which Google says falls three months after community end of life, though some versions start later. Extended support is "a paid service and is in addition to the current costs of your instance", lasts up to three years, and is followed by an automatic upgrade to the default major version. The extended support page does not list a rate; it points to the Cloud SQL pricing page. We have not found a confirmed PostgreSQL 14 date in Google's documentation, so check the console rather than assuming February.

For anyone deciding between the two clouds on this basis, our Amazon RDS versus Google Cloud SQL comparison covers the wider differences. On this narrow question, they behave alike: free for a short window, then a charge that rises the longer you wait.

Office LTSC 2021 and AI Builder: the Microsoft retirements already in force

Two Microsoft changes have already taken effect, and both are easy to overlook because nothing visibly broke.

Office, Project and Visio LTSC 2021

Support for Office LTSC 2021, Project LTSC 2021 and Visio LTSC 2021 ended on 13 October 2026. Microsoft's partner notice is direct: it "no longer provides updates, security fixes, or technical support for these products." The apps still open and still save files. The next document-borne exploit will not be patched.

Microsoft's recommended route is a subscription. For enterprises it names Microsoft 365 E3 first, with Office 365 E3 or Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise as fallbacks; for businesses under 300 users, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Business Standard or Apps for business; for Project and Visio, Planner and Project Plan 3 and Visio Plan 2. Our Microsoft 365 pricing page has the current plan costs.

The notice also contains the fallback Microsoft would rather customers did not need: where regulatory, connectivity or technical constraints rule out cloud, Office LTSC 2024, Project LTSC 2024 and Visio LTSC 2024 remain available. Two details in the same notice are worth knowing before choosing. Microsoft Copilot is supported only on the cloud-backed apps in Microsoft 365 suites, not on perpetual Office. And the Azure Information Protection labelling client for perpetual Office has been retired.

LTSC customers chose a perpetual licence for a reason, usually cost predictability or an offline requirement, and those reasons have not gone away. If a subscription is not the answer, the realistic alternatives are LTSC 2024 or a different suite: compare LibreOffice and Microsoft 365 or Microsoft 365 and WPS Office. For Project, our Microsoft Project alternatives and the Microsoft Project versus Smartsheet comparison cover the field; for Visio, Lucidchart is the most common replacement.

AI Builder capacity add-ons

From 1 November 2026, Microsoft retired AI Builder capacity add-ons from sale. Customers with active subscriptions keep their existing AI Builder credits until the end of their current subscription term. Microsoft tells partners to turn off auto-renew before each customer's next renewal date "to prevent the retired add-on from renewing", and to "plan to use Copilot Credits for customers who want to continue using AI Builder features after their existing credits expire".

The buyer question is what happens to the Power Automate flows and Power Apps that consume AI Builder credits when the term ends. Microsoft's notice does not price the Copilot Credits that replace them, so the cost of carrying on is not yet a number you can put in a budget from this notice alone. Find the renewal date, find out which flows use AI Builder actions, and get a quote before the term lapses. If the answer is expensive, the Power Automate versus Zapier comparison is a reasonable place to test whether the workload belongs elsewhere.

A capacity product withdrawn in favour of a broader credit currency is a pattern we have tracked in this year's legacy plan retirements.

A prioritised checklist

Order matters because the exposures differ. Something internet-facing and unpatched is a security problem from today. Something on a managed service with standard support until February is a budgeting problem with a date. Ranked by urgency:

1. Internet-facing .NET 8 and .NET 9 applications. Out of support from today, 10 November. List them, confirm they are on 8.0.34 or 9.0.23 as a stopgap, and schedule the move to .NET 10 or 11. Public APIs and web front ends first, internal tools after.
2. Self-hosted PostgreSQL 14. Apply the 12 November minor release when it ships, because it is expected to be the last. Then plan the major upgrade, ideally to 17 or 18.
3. Office LTSC 2021 on machines that open external documents. Already unsupported since 13 October. Prioritise users who handle email attachments from outside the organisation.
4. AI Builder renewals. Find every subscription's renewal date. If you buy through a partner, confirm they have turned off auto-renew, and get a Copilot Credits quote before the term ends.
5. PostgreSQL 14 on RDS. Not urgent, but dated: standard support runs to 28 February 2027 and billing starts 1 March. Put the upgrade in the first quarter's plan, and confirm whether Extended Support is enabled on each instance so the March invoice is not the first notice.
6. PostgreSQL 14 on Cloud SQL. Confirm the end-of-life date in the console, then treat it as item five.

What to tell finance

Two of these items have a cash consequence, and both are avoidable. RDS Extended Support from March 2027 can be estimated now with the vCPU arithmetic above. AI Builder's replacement cost cannot be estimated from Microsoft's notice and needs a quote. Raising both now is cheaper than explaining them after the invoice arrives.

What to tell security

Three items are already past their date: Office LTSC 2021, .NET 8 and .NET 9. Expect them to come up in vulnerability scans and supplier security questionnaires, which often ask whether software is still vendor-supported.

Questions people ask

When does .NET 8 support end?

10 November 2026. Microsoft lists .NET 8, a long-term support release from 14 November 2023, as out of support from that date, with 8.0.34 as its final patch. .NET 10 (LTS) and .NET 11 (STS) are the supported versions, both until 14 November 2028.

Why does .NET 9 end support at the same time as .NET 8?

Microsoft gives LTS releases three years of support and STS releases two. .NET 8 shipped in November 2023 and .NET 9 in November 2024, so both reach the end in November 2026. The final .NET 9 patch is 9.0.23.

When is PostgreSQL 14 end of life?

12 November 2026, according to the PostgreSQL versioning page. The project supports each major version for five years and then releases a final minor version. The November minor, 14.25, is due that day; the page does not formally name it as the final release.

Does AWS charge for PostgreSQL 14 on RDS after end of life?

Not immediately. RDS standard support for PostgreSQL 14 runs until 28 February 2027, and Extended Support pricing starts on 1 March 2027, with a higher year 3 rate from 1 March 2029. AWS gives $0.100 per vCPU-hour for years one and two and $0.200 from year three in its US East (Ohio) example. See our MySQL 8.0 Extended Support explainer for how enrolment works.

Which PostgreSQL version should I upgrade to from 14?

PostgreSQL 17 (supported to 8 November 2029) or 18 (to 14 November 2030). Moving to 15 only buys a year, since it reaches end of life on 11 November 2027.

Can I still use Office LTSC 2021 after end of support?

Yes, it keeps working, but since 13 October 2026 Microsoft no longer provides updates, security fixes or technical support for Office, Project or Visio LTSC 2021. Microsoft recommends Microsoft 365, with Office, Project and Visio LTSC 2024 as the on-premises option where cloud is ruled out.

What happens to my AI Builder credits?

AI Builder capacity add-ons were retired from sale on 1 November 2026. Existing credits remain usable until the end of your current subscription term. After that, Microsoft points customers to Copilot Credits to keep using AI Builder features.

Sources

Every price, limit and date above was checked against these pages on the day shown. Where a figure has since moved, the vendor’s own page is the authority and this one is a snapshot.

1. 1.NET and .NET Core official support policy · MicrosoftEnd-of-support dates and final patches for .NET 8 and 9, .NET 10 and 11 dates, LTS and STS durations, and the latest-patch requirement.Checked 10 November 2026
2. 2Versioning Policy · PostgreSQL Global Development GroupThe five-year policy, the final-minor-release rule and end-of-life dates for PostgreSQL 14 to 18.Checked 10 November 2026
3. 3October 2026 announcements, Partner Center · MicrosoftOffice, Project and Visio LTSC 2021 end of support and upgrade paths; AI Builder capacity add-on retirement and Copilot Credits.Checked 10 November 2026
4. 4Release calendars for Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL · Amazon Web ServicesRDS standard support and Extended Support dates for PostgreSQL 14.Checked 10 November 2026
5. 5Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL pricing · Amazon Web ServicesExtended Support rates of $0.100 and $0.200 per vCPU-hour, from the US East (Ohio) example.Checked 10 November 2026
6. 6Extended support for Cloud SQL for PostgreSQL · Google CloudWhen Cloud SQL extended support starts, that it is charged in addition, and the three-year limit.Checked 10 November 2026