Your example does not follow SemVer. If it did, however, your query would have a straightforward answer described in Section 11 of the Specification[0] Here i

Your example does not follow SemVer. If it did, however, your query would have a straightforward answer described in Section 11 of the Specification[0] Here is their example for how to handle pre-release versions: 1.0.0-alpha < 1.0.0-alpha.1 < 1.0.0-alpha.beta < 1.0.0-beta < 1.0.0-beta.2 < 1.0.0-beta.11 < 1.0.0-rc.1 < 1.0.0. The example shows that "1.9-rc.1" is less than "1.9" and both are less than "1.10". So while it is true that many parts of SemVer are as yet unspecified, it seems to me (from these comments), that many people do not understand the already specified parts of SemVer, currently. [0] https://semver.org/#spec-item-11 https://semver.org/#spec-item-11