12.4 and 13.2 are "snapshot" releases: https://www.freebsd.org/snapshots/ https://www.freebsd.org/snapshots/ TLDR; Snapshots are interim test releases. Not i

12.4 and 13.2 are "snapshot" releases: https://www.freebsd.org/snapshots/ https://www.freebsd.org/snapshots/ TLDR; Snapshots are interim test releases. Not intended for production systems. 14.0 won't have a release until next year, but they added it to the list of upcoming releases on the web page so you can click on the link and see what the release schedule really is: https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/schedule/ https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/schedule/ 12.3 is the most recent release from the stable/12 branch. 13.1 is the most recent release from the stable/13 branch. Both are production releases. If you don't need features in 13.x, you may want to consider using 12.y. 12.y will have had more time for bugs to be reported and fixed, but will have fewer new features. So... I believe the simple answer is there's always an older and a newer production release available. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD_version_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD_version_history has a nice graphic of how long each release is supported. For the past decade, a new major version of FreeBSD has been released about every two years, which is about the cadence Canonical releases a new LTS.