Implement 4.5 or 5.0

[ivanj]

I am getting ready to implement SugarCRM using the Community version to support a small startup with just 2 employees to track our clients.

My question is since 5.0 release is supposed to be out in a week should I wait for the 5.0 or implement the 4.5.

Obviously one of the benefits of the 4.5 is there are a number of users running it and it already has a lot of the issues worked out whereas 5.0 is a brand new version and a brand new release.

My question is once 5.0 is out how much effort will be expended to maintain the 4.5 code base or will all of the effort switch over to the 5.0 version. For how much longer can we expect to see bug fixes etc for 4.5

I will be doing some customization to some of the labels as well as adding a few custom fields and it is my understanding that a lot of that would be lost if at some point I did a 4.5 to 5.0 upgrade ?

All thoughts and comments are appreciated.

[lvangool]

I don't think much will be done on the 4.5 codebase from now on. Sugar will probably state that you need to upgrade, unless the bug is very very big.

Just do this:
- Use 4.5 for now and don't make any non-upgradable modifications to it.
- Upgrade to 5.0F/G or something in a few months.

[Angel]

My 2 cents...

I would echo lvangool's comments on the matter and add the following...

In my opinion, it is never good practice to be the first to use the latest of anything, especially when it comes to business critical software.

As stated by lvangool, wait a few months. Essentially, wait till the bugs are flushed out.

In my opinion, it is unreasonable to expect a software vendor to catch every problem/bug in their software. Many of those issues are not discovered until the software gets out into the masses. That's just the nature of the beast.

Given that there are major overhauls to some areas of Sugar, I would not be surprised to find that the community will find a number of issues within a short time of 5.0's release.

Give it some time and then upgrade when things have calmed down and you feel the upgrade is necessary for your needs.

[andydreisch]

... it is my understanding that a lot of that [labels and custom fields] would be lost if at some point I did a 4.5 to 5.0 upgrade ?

All thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Hi ivanj, not at all.

The bottom line is that Studio-based changes like new fields, label changes, dropdown edits, etc., are all preserved when upgrading to 5.0.

There are several Wiki articles beginning with this one on this subject that go pretty deep. But just remember that the types of mods you outlined in your post are directly upgradable to 5.0.

Also, to be very specific, the upgrade to 5.0 is available from 4.5.1, which is the (current) latest stable.

Andy