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CiviCRM

CRM
Velocity2.5

Open-source constituent relationship management for nonprofits and associations

civicrm.org ↗

CiviCRM holds its nonprofit CRM steady with 6.x point releases and quiet dependency modernization.

crmnonprofitmaintenanceopen-sourcetech-debt
◆Current state
CiviCRM is in steady maintenance mode on its 6.x line, shipping frequent patch releases that fix narrow bugs like membership receipt tokens and tidy release infrastructure. The most substantive recent move is dropping the legacy Smarty v2 templating dependency, which modernizes the stack beneath an otherwise stable feature surface. This is a mature open-source CRM prioritizing reliability over new capability.
◆Where it's heading
Development is maintenance-led rather than feature-led: the cadence is small point releases on an established major version, with version-bump housekeeping dominating the log. The Smarty cleanup signals the team is paying down long-standing tech debt under the hood. Expect continued incremental hardening rather than directional change.
◆Prediction
Next releases will most likely be more 6.x point fixes; the one thread worth watching is further templating and dependency modernization rather than headline features.

◆Recent moves

  1. 12d ago

    6.14.1: Fix membership receipt price token

    A 6.14.1 patch fixing the price token on membership receipts — a narrow correctness fix consistent with the product's maintenance-led cadence.

    View source ↗
  2. 2mo ago

    6.12.3 maintenance release

    A 6.12.3 housekeeping release that only sets the version and adds release notes — no user-visible change.

    View source ↗
  3. 2mo ago

    6.12.2 maintenance release

    A 6.12.2 version-bump release with notes only — routine release plumbing, nothing users would notice.

    View source ↗
  4. 2mo ago

    6.12.1: Drop Smarty v2 templating dependency

    Dropping the Smarty v2 templating dependency in 6.12.1 is the most substantive recent move — invisible to end users but a real tech-debt reduction that affects extension and template authors and modernizes the underlying stack.

    View source ↗