Akeneo Community Edition in 2026: Stay or Move On?

Akeneo Community Edition (CE), once a vibrant open-source solution for product information management (PIM), has transitioned from a well-maintained, regularly updated open-source product to a stable but largely static codebase. Today, it is supported primarily by the community and third-party providers rather than Akeneo’s core development team.

Its role has effectively shifted toward that of a legacy open-source foundation, while Akeneo’s strategic focus has moved to SaaS offerings that provide richer functionality, continuous innovation, and professional support.

As of the end of 2025, a common question among developers, integrators, and businesses is whether Akeneo CE is effectively “dead.”

Short answer: not quite yet. However, active development has slowed significantly, and the long-term future of Akeneo Community Edition beyond 2026 remains uncertain.

Here is why:

Development ended, maintenance continues

Akeneo ended active development and feature releases for the Community Edition in 2023. The final major release, Akeneo PIM v7.0 (Sahara Hare), was issued in March 2023 and will continue to receive security patches and critical bug fixes until September 30, 2026. No functional enhancements or roadmap-driven improvements are planned.

Akeneo’s product strategy is now fully centered on its SaaS-based Serenity and Growth Editions, leaving the Community Edition in a maintenance-only state with no ongoing innovation. Ecosystem partners also acknowledge this shift.

Community-led activity without stewardship

Although Akeneo no longer actively stewards the Community Edition, its public GitHub repositories continue to show community-led engagement through late 2025.

Recent commits, issues, and pull requests mainly come from third-party contributors and system integrators. Most discussions focus on practical topics such as PHP compatibility, asset management, and cloud storage integrations. Official involvement from Akeneo is limited, and few pull requests are merged.

Support shifts to third parties

To meet ongoing customer demand and generate services revenue, some ecosystem partners offer formal long-term support (LTS) for Akeneo Community Edition. These services typically include security patches, compatibility updates (such as PHP upgrades), bug fixes, performance improvements, and custom development and integration work.

Relying on third-party support keeps CE secure and functional, but comes with downsides: no official backing, variable quality, limited access to proprietary features, reliance on the provider for updates, and possible complexity for future upgrades.

Practical Trade-offs of Using Akeneo CE

Despite reduced official support, some organizations still choose Akeneo Community Edition in 2025–2026 for cost, control, or architectural reasons. These benefits come with concrete operational and technical risks that must be clearly understood.

Key Downsides to Consider

No official updates or new features
Community Edition no longer receives updates that keep it aligned with the latest commercial editions. This leads to gaps in functionality, such as missing new attribute types, advanced workflows, or modern integration features.

Compatibility issues with newer PHP versions
As PHP and related libraries evolve, CE users frequently encounter upgrade challenges, such as broken image uploads, cloud storage errors, and failing import/export scripts. These issues usually require manual fixes or third-party support.

Removal of Marketplace bundles for CE
Official marketplace bundles are no longer provided for Community Edition, reducing access to ready-made extensions and increasing reliance on custom development.

No SLA-backed support from Akeneo
There is no contractual support, response guarantee, or security SLA for CE. Production incidents are entirely the responsibility of the operating organization.

Security risks without proactive maintenance
Like any unmaintained platform, Akeneo CE accumulates vulnerabilities over time, including exploitable file uploads, API exposure, authentication flaws, and risks from outdated PHP versions.

CE vs Serenity: A New Era

Akeneo’s Serenity Edition is now the company’s primary focus. It is a fully managed SaaS platform designed to reduce operational overhead through AI-assisted enrichment, cloud-native architecture, advanced workflows, built-in analytics, and automatic updates.

Despite this, many organizations do not migrate from Community Edition because:

• Subscription pricing may exceed long-term CE operating costs
• CE allows full access to code and infrastructure
• Migration requires reworking custom extensions and integrations
• Some organizations need self-hosting or strict data residency controls
• For stable catalogs, CE continues to meet core needs when properly maintained

There is no standard published price for Serenity. However, annual SaaS costs commonly begin in the $25,000–$45,000+ range and increase with scale and additional services.

Next Steps for CE Users

Stick with CE + Partner Support

Organizations may continue using Community Edition with third-party maintenance and custom development. CE has no licensing fees and provides full ownership of hosting, data, and code, which appeals to teams with existing investments.

This approach requires strong internal engineering capabilities. Teams remain responsible for security patching, dependency upgrades, and long-term platform stability, with no official roadmap or vendor guarantees.

Upgrade to Serenity or Growth Edition

Moving to a managed SaaS platform provides vendor-backed SLAs, continuous updates, and access to newer capabilities, while reducing operational burden. The trade-offs are recurring costs, reduced flexibility for deep customizations, and migration effort.

Switch to a Composable PIM

If you are leaving Akeneo CE entirely, some organizations choose to modernize their product information management (PIM) stack by adopting open-source PIM alternatives.

AtroPIM
AtroPIM is well-suited for complex catalogs, evolving data models, multiple channels, and governance-heavy environments. Its API-first design, flexible schemas, field-level permissions, and built-in DAM support long-term adaptability.

UnoPIM
UnoPIM targets simpler product data needs and prioritizes quick setup, ease of use, and low operational overhead. It is best suited for small to mid-sized businesses with straightforward catalogs.

Key Takeaways

Akeneo Community Edition is not dead by 2026, but it is clearly in a late-maintenance phase. There are three realistic paths forward:

1. Stay on CE with partner support if you have strong technical capabilities
2. Upgrade to Serenity or Growth for managed operations and ongoing innovation
3. Switch to a composable PIM when modernizing your architecture:

• AtroPIM is best for organizations that need flexibility, scalability, and evolving data models

UnoPIM is better for simpler use cases where ease of use and low complexity are priorities