Version 16 is our first major release in two years. After endless disussions, false starts, long detours, unexpected breakthroughs and sleepless nights, we are so excited to finaly bring it to you. It also signifies our commitment towards long-term support cycles for business-critical software.

What did we do differently this time?

Version 16 also signals major changes in our engineering practices. Our flagship products finally have a public roadmap, and the majority of new features that were added were driven by feature requests from end users. We are already planning the roadmap for version 17, which is at least two years away.

Frappe also adopted a light-touch product management by onboarding new product managers on our flagship products. We are still an engineering-first company, but Product Managers have upped our game by bringing an external perspective to every discussion. We also ended up delaying the release based on feedback we received from early user testing. ERPNext and Frappe HR, which have been focusing on stability for a while, had a very balanced major release... packed with new features, scalability enhancements.

Progress over familiarity

The biggest change you'll notice in v16 is the new Desktop UI and navigation. The iconic desktop is back. We have evolved our UI with every major release, and also received frustration from end users about drastic changes. Soham worked on the new desktop UI and explains the rationale behind UI experimentation simply: We keep experimenting because we haven't found the right fit.

Every UI iteration has improved something for end users, and while lack of familiarity is disorienting, we are already seeing early adopters loving the new UI and navigation after a few weeks of usage.

Version 16 contains several such major changes to ensure long-term sustainability of our flagship product along the following dimensions:

• User Experience: A new desktop-like navigation with a persistent sidebar.
• Security: Major refactors to make the core of the Frappe framework even more secure.
• Performance: Up to 2x faster performance on most workloads.
• Refactors and major features: v16 release is jam-packed with new features balanced with refactors to keep the codebase healthy.

Growing Up

I joined Frappe when v13 was still being worked upon, and I've seen v14 and v15 releases first-hand too. This one feels different. There are multiple rounds of testing, product management, user feedback, marketing campaigns, and deep community collaborations.

We believe design is our USP, and this was our first release with deep collaboration with our new in-house design team. Jacob has designed and iterated on the majority of UI changes that you'll experience. Integration of so many major changes in the Framework was a mammoth task, and Saqib took a break from Insights to lead this project and make it happen.

These are just a few examples of many such stories behind this release. Here are some links for you to explore v16 further:

• v16 release page
• Community disussion thread
• Try it on Frappe Cloud

We can't wait for you to try it out on FrappeCloud.

A huge thanks to everyone who made this release happen: Nabin Hait, Ejaaz Khan, Soham Kulkarni, Jacob Salvi, Saqib Ansari, Faris Ansari, Akhil Narang, Rohit Waghchaure, Ruthra Kumar, Mihir Kandoi, Khushi Rawat, Diptanil Saha, Asmita Hase, Raheel Khan, Aysha Hakim, Ayush Chaudhary, Raffael Mayer, Sagar Vora, Smit Vora, Lakshit Jain, Vignesh Sekar and Aerele team, Chinmaya Kulkarni, Dipen Gala, Rucha Mahabal, Nishka Gosalia, Jatin Sarna, Kerolles Fathy, Hussain Nagaria with BWH Studios and 100s of community contributors.