OpenSSL Library 3.6 Upcoming Release Announcement
The freeze date for OpenSSL 3.6 Alpha is rapidly approaching. If you have a feature ready, please ensure that your associated PRs are posted, reviewed, and ready to be merged before the include/exclude decision date (Tuesday, August 5, 2025) and merged before the repository freeze date (Tuesday, August 19, 2025). Otherwise, the feature will be postponed until the next release.
Important dates
- Feature branches include/exclude decision date: August 5, 2025
- Feature branches merge: August 12, 2025
- Feature freeze date: August 19, 2025
- Alpha release date: September 2, 2025
- Beta release date: September 16, 2025
- Release date: October 1, 2025
Current highlights of the feature list planned for 3.6 include:
- LMS (Leighton-Micali Signature) - signature verification support as per SP 800-208
- Added openssl configutl - utility for processing the openssl configuration file and dumping the equal configuration file
- Added KEMRecipientInfo (RFC 9629) and ML-KEM (draft-ietf-lamps-cms-kyber) support to CMS
- Added support for TLS 1.3 OCSP multi-stapling for server certificates
- performance improvements, security enhancements, technical debt reduction
- and many more! - see CHANGES.md
If you have any questions or comments regarding the OpenSSL 3.6 release contact us at feedback@openssl.org.