Python 2 Support Past End of Life
ActiveState’s extended support offers our exclusive Python 2.7.18.X end of life builds
Includes security patches addressing vulnerabilities and bug fixes identified in the core Python 2 programming language release as well as Python packages, reducing the risks to your software and organization from known exploits.
Let’s discuss your
Python 2 support needs
January 1, 2020: The Python Software Foundation (PSF) sunset Python 2. End of Life (EOL) means there are no more official updates or security fixes, not even for critical security vulnerabilities.
- Final official release of Python 2 is missing exclusive patches for emergent vulnerabilities.
- Loss of official support from the Python core team.
- Popular packages have sunset their Python 2 support.
- Python 2 in non-production environments are vulnerable to supply chain attacks.
- Vendors are phasing out support for Python 2 distributions (e.g. Red Hat, Apple, AWS, Heroku, Ubuntu).
Python 2.7 core codebases, including packages, modules and frameworks will continue to become less reliable and more vulnerable to attacks as security issues and bugs continue to emerge.
Benefits Of ActiveState Python 2.7.18.X
Python 2 Security Patches
Get updates for Python 2 core and third-party packages, including backported fixes from Python 3
Updated Packages
New versions of Python 2 third-party packages
Python 3 Migration Guidance
Expertise on Python 2 migration targets, and which Python 3 packages are suitably maintained and licensed
Technical Support
Support for Windows, Linux, macOS and more. Communicate with us via phone, email and chat
Supply Chain Security
Secure all your open source dependencies across dev, test and staging environments
SLA-Backed
Enterprise service-level agreements to ensure protection against critical and high-severity CVEs
Download Python 2 Community Edition
ActivePython 2.7.18 is available for free.
For greater security and ongoing updates Contact Us for access to 2.7.18.x.
Additional Resources
Python 2 Threat In Your Supply Chain
If you’re still running Python 2 code in non-production, you need to realize that the Python 2 supply chain includes the ways in which Python 2 is involved in your build process, as well as your development and testing environments.
Data Sheet – Python 2 Extended Support
Download our PDF data sheet outlining our Python 2 extended support offering, including details on Python 2 security fixes, technical support and migration/rewrite guidance.
ActiveState has been evaluating and fixing known Python vulnerabilities that affect Python 2. These CVE’s can be reviewed for your internal remediation, or alternatively, are available as part of our extended support.
Let’s discuss your Python 2 support needs
Book a 30 min. session with our Python experts to get a free quote and vulnerability report for your environment’s version of Python 2.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Python programming language v2.0 was introduced to programmers and the Python community in the year 2000. Created by Guido Van Rossum in conjunction with the BeOpen Python Labs team, the purpose of the introduction of Python 2 was to make programming simple and easy to learn for beginners. Common use cases for Python development included scripting, task automation, web/HTML development, data analysis and visualization, data science and machine learning.
Python 3, the latest major version of Python, has new features and much better language syntax to use for new Python projects since it not only comes with a better set of standard built-in libraries than Python 2, but also resolves a number of key limitations (such as Unicode support for strings rather being stored as ASCII) in the original design of Python code. Python 3 is now one of the most popular programming languages in the world.
Python 2.0 was released in 2000 and was the most popular version of Python for almost 20 years. It can still be found in large projects that contain a lot of legacy source code. Like most popular languages with large install bases, Python 2 runtimes will continue to be run in production and non-production environments for years to come.
No one should consider starting a new software development in Python 2 since the Python Software Foundation (PSF) discontinued support for it in January 2020. However, it may be necessary to continue using Python 2 because the cost and resources of porting the application to Python 3 is simply not worth it. Python 2 application compatibility with Python 3 is not guaranteed.