Postbeta

Postbeta is a term used in software development to describe the period after beta testing has concluded and before a product is released to general availability. The exact meaning and duration vary across organizations, and some teams prefer "post-beta" or "post-beta phase" as a planning construct rather than a formal milestone. In practice, postbeta encompasses stabilization work, final bug fixes, performance tuning, security hardening, and the completion of documentation, localization, and packaging required for production deployment.

During postbeta, teams typically perform regression testing, risk assessment, and readiness reviews to ensure that features introduced or refined during beta remain stable. The phase may include a freeze of new features (feature freeze) and the preparation of release notes, installation guides, and customer onboarding materials. Depending on the process, postbeta may feed into the release candidate stage or directly into production release once success criteria—such as acceptable defect density, performance targets, and security criteria—are met. Some organizations treat postbeta as continuous improvement in the context of ongoing support, rather than a discrete window.

Terminology and practices around postbeta differ widely. In agile and DevOps environments, the concept can be embedded in a release train or continuous delivery pipeline, with postbeta elements occurring alongside early production monitoring and hotfix workflows. As a result, "postbeta" can refer to a time-bound phase, a set of activities, or a general post-beta mindset aimed at stabilization and readiness for public usage.