How do you find the latest version of a runtime, tool or library?

Most software maintains several release lines at once: Node.js ships patches for its current and LTS majors, PHP updates 8.4, 8.3 and older lines on the same day, and Kubernetes supports its last few minor versions. When you update a server, a Dockerfile or a CI pipeline, or pin a version in .nvmrc, composer.json or package.json, you want the newest patch of the line you use, not just the newest version overall.

Tool description

Pick the Software and press Check latest version. You get:

  • The Latest version: the highest stable version, and when it was Released
  • The Pre-release: the newest alpha, beta, release candidate, preview or canary of a higher version, if there is one
  • Release lines: the latest version of each line, highest first, each linked to its release notes on GitHub

Every runtime, tool and library also has a page of its own, such as the Node.js or React latest version checker, which starts on it.

The versions come from the GitHub releases of each project's official repository. Tags are read without their prefix, so v24.11.0, php-8.4.14, release-1.29.3 and svelte@5.43.0 show as 24.11.0, 8.4.14, 1.29.3 and 5.43.0, and Ruby's older v3_4_1 tags as 3.4.1. A release counts as a pre-release when GitHub marks it as one or when its version ends in a label such as -beta2, RC1 or -canary.3. Moving tags such as Elixir's v1.20-latest, and releases of other packages in the same repository, are skipped.

The check runs on our server, which reads the release list from GitHub's REST API at api.github.com, without a GitHub token.

AI assistants connected to the Rapid Tool Set MCP server can run the same check as latest_version_checker.

Supported software

A release line is a major version (such as Node.js 24.x) for projects that support majors, and a minor version (such as PHP 8.4.x) for the others.

Software Type GitHub repository A release line is
Node.js Runtime nodejs/node A major version
PHP Runtime php/php-src A minor version
Ruby Runtime ruby/ruby A minor version
.NET Runtime dotnet/runtime A major version
Rust Language rust-lang/rust A minor version
Deno Runtime denoland/deno A minor version
Bun Runtime oven-sh/bun A minor version
Kotlin Language JetBrains/kotlin A minor version
Swift Language swiftlang/swift A minor version
Scala Language scala/scala3 A minor version
Elixir Language elixir-lang/elixir A minor version
Erlang/OTP Runtime erlang/otp A major version
Julia Language JuliaLang/julia A minor version
Crystal Language crystal-lang/crystal A minor version
Gleam Language gleam-lang/gleam A minor version
Docker Compose Tool docker/compose A major version
Kubernetes Tool kubernetes/kubernetes A minor version
Terraform Tool hashicorp/terraform A minor version
Helm Tool helm/helm A major version
nginx Server nginx/nginx A minor version
Caddy Server caddyserver/caddy A minor version
Traefik Server traefik/traefik A minor version
Redis Server redis/redis A minor version
Grafana Server grafana/grafana A minor version
npm Tool npm/cli A major version
pnpm Tool pnpm/pnpm A major version
Composer Tool composer/composer A minor version
React Library react/react A minor version
Next.js Framework vercel/next.js A major version
Vue.js Framework vuejs/core A minor version
Angular Framework angular/angular A major version
Svelte Framework sveltejs/svelte A major version
TypeScript Language microsoft/TypeScript A minor version
Tailwind CSS Library tailwindlabs/tailwindcss A major version
Laravel Framework laravel/framework A major version
Symfony Framework symfony/symfony A minor version
Ruby on Rails Framework rails/rails A minor version

For .NET, the version is the .NET runtime's, which can differ from the SDK's. nginx numbers its mainline versions with an odd minor (1.29) and its stable ones with an even minor (1.28).

Limitations

  • Python, Go, PostgreSQL and other projects that only publish Git tags, without GitHub releases, can't be checked.
  • Only the newest releases are read, so a release line that hasn't had a release for a long time can be missing.
  • A release line in the list isn't necessarily still supported. Check the project's own release schedule before you pick one.