Regarding client and server version alignment

yeikel
Tue, 07 Oct 2025 16:53:55 +0000
Elasticsearch

We discovered through MissingRequiredPropertyException in PIT query · Issue #921 · elastic/elasticsearch-java · GitHub that even minor version mismatches between the Elasticsearch server and client can lead to issues.

Based on this, the general guidance is to align the client and server versions as closely as possible for maximum compatibility.

our main goal is for the client to match the current server version as close as possible.

However, it’s not always feasible to match versions, since some server releases do not have a corresponding client version. This is especially true for certain minor or patch releases.

“Closely as possible” is also relative, because for our use case it caused the defect.

For example, there is a server release for 8.19.5 but no client release. At least not yet.

Although for this specific example, it may be due to timings, we also observed this in past versions.

What is the most up-to-date recommendation regarding version alignment between the Elasticsearch server and client?

One possible solution would be to guarantee that every version, regardless of how minor, includes a release for both the client and the server, but I ignore if you decided not to do that intentionally or what the strategy is.

Any clarification would help

Thanks!

4 posts - 2 participants