Summary
Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) is the official operating system for Raspberry Pi hardware, maintained by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It is a Debian-based distribution, with each release tracking a specific Debian release. Raspberry Pi OS is also available on non-RPi hardware and is widely used in education, embedded systems, and hobbyist projects.
Lifecycle Data Source
Raspberry Pi OS does not publish its own independent lifecycle dates. Its support lifecycle is inherited from the underlying Debian release it is based on. For example, Raspberry Pi OS 12 (Bookworm) is based on Debian 12 and is effectively supported for as long as Debian 12 receives security updates.
Official sources:
Machine-readable data:
There is no dedicated endoflife.date product for Raspberry Pi OS (the raspbian.json and raspberry-pi-os.json endpoints return 404; the raspberry-pi.json endpoint covers hardware lifecycle, not the OS). The relevant upstream data is:
- Debian API: https://endoflife.date/api/debian.json — tracks the Debian releases that Raspberry Pi OS is built upon
- The Raspberry Pi Foundation does not publish a standalone machine-readable lifecycle file for the OS.
Notes
- The recommended approach is to map Raspberry Pi OS versions to their corresponding Debian base and use Debian's lifecycle dates.
- Raspberry Pi OS Bookworm = Debian 12; Bullseye = Debian 11; Buster = Debian 10.
- Raspberry Pi OS also has a 32-bit and 64-bit variant; lifecycle dates are the same for both.
- The Raspberry Pi Foundation typically releases a new OS version within a few months of each new Debian stable release.
Summary
Raspberry Pi OS (formerly Raspbian) is the official operating system for Raspberry Pi hardware, maintained by the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It is a Debian-based distribution, with each release tracking a specific Debian release. Raspberry Pi OS is also available on non-RPi hardware and is widely used in education, embedded systems, and hobbyist projects.
Lifecycle Data Source
Raspberry Pi OS does not publish its own independent lifecycle dates. Its support lifecycle is inherited from the underlying Debian release it is based on. For example, Raspberry Pi OS 12 (Bookworm) is based on Debian 12 and is effectively supported for as long as Debian 12 receives security updates.
Official sources:
Machine-readable data:
There is no dedicated endoflife.date product for Raspberry Pi OS (the
raspbian.jsonandraspberry-pi-os.jsonendpoints return 404; theraspberry-pi.jsonendpoint covers hardware lifecycle, not the OS). The relevant upstream data is:Notes