Camunda 7 Forks Compared: CIB seven, Operaton and Staying Put

The Camunda 7 Community Edition ended in October 2025. For the Enterprise Edition, Camunda maintains 7.24 LTS until April 2030. In Camunda 7, the engine can run as a Java library inside your own application. Camunda 8 gave that architecture up, and the forks keep it.

This article compares the two forks with reliable documentation, CIB seven and Operaton, and sets them against a third path: staying on Camunda 7. Everything here comes from each vendor’s own documentation or from GitHub metadata, and was checked on 29 October 2026.

Why the forks exist

Camunda has published nothing for the Community Edition since its final release, 7.24, on 14 October 2025, security patches included. The repository is archived. If you run the Community Edition, your installation receives no further fixes from Camunda. The full dates for every version are in Camunda 7 end of maintenance per version.

Camunda 8 is the vendor’s answer, and it changes the architecture. Camunda’s own migration guide says that “the workflow engine in Camunda 8, Zeebe, is always a remote resource for your application, while the embedded engine mode is not supported.” A fork keeps the architecture you have. If your engine is embedded, that is the whole difference.

The two forks side by side

Both forks start from Camunda 7.24. In practice that is the most important row in the table. If you are on 7.20 or 7.22 today, an ordinary version upgrade comes before either fork. For the Enterprise Edition, the same upgrade also leads back into maintenance. Operaton documents its migration from the Community Edition: its first step reads “Upgrade to Camunda 7 CE version 7.24”. Neither fork’s migration guide names an Enterprise-only component. If you run the Enterprise Edition, assess those components on their own before you choose a fork.

The case against Operaton: the support model

Operaton answers the question plainly in its own FAQ: “Operaton itself does not offer a traditional LTS line; the rolling 6-month support window is the model. Listed Service Providers can offer extended maintenance and SLAs for organizations that need long-term stability.” (operaton.org/faq)

Your operations manual may have to commit to a security patch window. A project model that asks for an upgrade every six months cannot carry that commitment alone. In that case, extended maintenance can come from one of the listed service providers. They are independent companies, and you engage them directly. If your team upgrades regularly anyway, the six-month window costs you little.

The other side of the ledger is documented too: free of charge, no usage limits, production use allowed and the same database schema. If your estate ran the Community Edition without licence fees, Operaton leaves that cost structure as it is, because it has no commercial tier. CIB seven also offers an open source Community edition. CIB provides its patch-level updates only to Community+ and Enterprise customers, though.

The case against CIB seven: the exact version prerequisite

CIB documents the switch and supplies a script built on the OpenRewrite Maven plugin. The prerequisite is narrow, though: “The backend of CIB seven 2.1.0 is based on Camunda 7.24.0, so before the migration, please check your Camunda version: it should be Camunda 7.24.0.” (docs.cibseven.org)

The newest line is CIB seven 2.2, with GitHub release v2.2.0 on 1 June 2026. The migration page now has its own section for it, “Migration to CIB seven 2.2”. That section names the same prerequisite: “it should be Camunda 7.24.0”.

This matters for planning. The switch becomes a two-step move: first to 7.24, then to the fork. Depending on the age of your estate, the first step can be the larger of the two. It is also the step you gain from in any case. It takes you back into the only Camunda 7 line still maintained for the Enterprise Edition.

The third path: staying on Camunda 7

You can stay on Camunda 7 with a paid Enterprise subscription on 7.24 LTS. Your code stays as it is and you keep your vendor. For the Enterprise Edition, maintenance of 7.24 LTS runs until April 2030.

We name this path on purpose, although it brings us no migration project, because for some readers it is the right answer. It costs licence fees, and Camunda publishes no price for them. It also moves the decision several years down the road. Either of those can be exactly what you need.

In a forum post (current revision 25 July 2025), Camunda named three routes for Community Edition users who want patches after October 2025. Among them were an upgrade to the Enterprise Edition and a free licence through its community programmes. On 29 October 2026, however, none of the three programme pages named a licence for Camunda 7. That day the Educational License Program was taking no new applications, and new Champion applications were paused. Camunda’s three routes are also listed in Camunda 7 end of maintenance per version.

How do you decide between the three?

1. Check your edition. On the Enterprise Edition with 7.24 LTS, maintenance runs until April 2030 and no date forces a move. On the Community Edition, you have received nothing since October 2025, and the decision is due.
2. Check how the engine runs. If the engine is embedded, the forks have the structural advantage. If it already runs as a separate service, your application already talks to a remote engine, which is how Camunda 8 always works.
3. Check your constraints. If you need an assured support window from the project itself, Operaton’s rolling six-month window drops out, however good the software is. Extended maintenance can then come from a listed service provider. CIB seven’s Community and Community+ editions also maintain each release for six months; its LTS and Enterprise tiers give 18 months.
4. Plan for the move to 7.24 in every case. Both forks require it, and Camunda’s route back into Enterprise Edition maintenance runs through it too.

If a process alongside your estate is done by hand, you can have that process automated; two weeks after the kickoff workshop it runs.

If you first want to know what Camunda 8 does differently in its architecture, Camunda 7 vs Camunda 8 walks through the documented differences.