Portainer Versions - Why we're matching the Agent with the Portainer Release

5 min read
June 4, 2021
July 8, 2025
Last updated:
November 22, 2025
Neil Cresswell
Neil Cresswell
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Portainer CEO
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Key takeaways

We’re keeping it simple! Sometimes it can be hard managing all the different version numbers across software and which versions work with which. To make this more transparent and easier to manage, we are matching the agent version with the respective Portainer versions.

Going forward, there will be occasions where there is no change to the Agent, but changes to Portainer and vice versa (this will be detailed in our release notes).

What does this mean exactly?

When you install Portainer CE 2.6 there will be a matching Agent version 2.6 available. If you already have a Portainer instance 2.5.1 running, you’ll need to set up the Agent version 2.5.1.

This helps to remove confusion around version compatibilities when installing particular instances and when updating versions. Now, you might be asking what if I don’t follow this. What happens? Well, we want the agent to work across different versions of Portainer, however, in the future, this may not be possible. So, we recommend version pining to avoid any unplanned disruptions.

To learn more about the Portainer Agent visit https://documentation.portainer.io/agent/index.html

To learn more about upgrading your Portainer instance visit https://documentation.portainer.io/upgrade/

Infrastructure Moves Fast. Stay Ahead.

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Conclusion

Neil Cresswell
Portainer CEO
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Neil Cresswell is the co-founder and CEO of Portainer, a popular platform that simplifies container management for Docker, Kubernetes, and edge environments. A veteran of over 25 years in IT, he began his career with 12 years at IBM before leading VMware consulting at ViFX across Asia-Pacific and serving as CEO for cloud service providers. Frustrated by the lack of usable tooling for “containers as a service,” he created Portainer to make container technology accessible to everyone. Under his leadership, Portainer has grown from an open-source UI into an enterprise-ready platform used globally.

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