Starting with Oracle APEX 26.1, direct (in-place) instance upgrades are supported only from APEX 18.1 or higher. Instances running earlier versions (such as APEX 4.x and 5.x) can no longer upgrade directly to 26.1 and must use an alternative upgrade path. This change applies only to instance upgrades. Application portability remains unaffected, and applications from any version, including “HTML DB 1.5”, can still be imported into a 26.1 instance.
Customers on APEX versions earlier than 18.1 can move to 26.1 using one of the following approaches:
Option A: Two-step instance upgrade
- Upgrade the APEX instance to a supported intermediate release (minimum: APEX 18.1).
- Upgrade from that release to APEX 26.1
Option B: Fresh install with application migration
(Note : This approach migrates applications only. It does not retain workspace-level configurations)
- Export all applications from the existing old APEX instance
- Install APEX 26.1 as a new instance
- Import the applications
Limiting the direct upgrade window lets the Oracle APEX team to streamline and optimize APEX upgrade logic, and also aligns with the broader Oracle Database philosophy: direct upgrades are not supported from very old releases, but data and application portability mechanisms remain available for customers who need to bridge larger version gaps.
Note:
Attempting a direct upgrade from a pre-18.1 instance will result in: “Direct Upgrade from APEX <version> to APEX 26.1 is not supported.“
For information about the ORDS version APEX 26.1 requires, see the Release Notes.