# Release

> A new version of Home Assistant. One comes out on the first Wednesday of every month, with patch releases in between.

Source: https://contributors.home-assistant.io/glossary/release/

- Also: releases, version

Versions are the year, the month, and the patch: 2026.10.0 is the first release of October 2026, and 2026.10.1 its first patch release. A [beta](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/glossary/beta/) comes out the week before each monthly release, for testing.

## Related terms

- [Beta](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/glossary/beta/): A test version of the next release, published a week before it, so people can find problems before everyone updates.
- [Patch release](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/glossary/patch-release/): A smaller release with fixes, that comes out between the monthly releases, like 2026.10.1.
- [Release notes](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/glossary/release-notes/): The blog post on home-assistant.io that tells what is new in a release, what changed, and what users need to do about it.
- [Dev branch](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/glossary/dev-branch/): The branch where development happens in many Home Assistant repositories, like Home Assistant Core and the frontend. Pull requests go there.
- [Backward-incompatible change](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/glossary/backward-incompatible-change/): A change that requires users or developers to change something on their side, like their configuration or their custom integration.
- [Deprecation](https://contributors.home-assistant.io/glossary/deprecation/): Announcing that something will be removed in a later release, while it keeps working until then, so people can move on.