AWS to put Deadline into maintenance mode next month
AWS is putting Deadline, its free renderfarm management software, into maintenance mode on 7 November 2025.
Deadline will continue to be supported and maintained, and its integrations with DCC software updated, but in future, the core software will only receive critical fixes.
A veteran application for managing on-premises renderfarms, now available free
Deadline – strictly, it’s now named AWS Thinkbox Deadline – is a veteran renderfarm management tool that Amazon acquired in 2017, and made available for free in 2022.
Since then, AWS has continued to put out releases, both to update the software’s core libraries, and to update the integrations for the 80+ DCC applications that Deadline supports.
Still being maintained, but no new features will be developed
That changes somewhat on 7 November 2025, when Deadline enters maintenance mode.
The software will continue to be supported, and will remain available for download: according to AWS’s online FAQs, it will even be possible to add new render nodes to a farm.
AWS will also continue to release updates to the integrations to support major new versions of compatible DCC software.
However, future development will be focused on “security updates and critical fixes rather than new features”.
While Deadline hasn’t had major new features for some time, recent releases have updated its core libraries and frameworks: for example, Deadline 10.3 moved the software to Python 3.10.
Users now advised to ‘explore Deadline Cloud’
In the longer term, AWS recommends “exploring AWS Deadline Cloud” for render management.
Launched last year, Deadline Cloud is based on the same technology as Deadline, but as the name suggests, is a platform for setting up a cloud-based renderfarm based on AWS infrastructure, rather than for running a farm on-premises.
Read AWS’s FAQs about Deadline entering maintenance mode
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