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Cost Optimization

Old Elasticsearch Domains on AWS: Extended Support Doubles the Bill From November 7, 2026

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October 25, 2026

6 min read

Elasticsearch 1.5 to 7.8 and OpenSearch 1.0–1.2 and 2.3–2.9 on Amazon OpenSearch Service left standard support in November 2025. From November 7, 2026, their Extended Support surcharge equals the instance price, and support ends November 7, 2027. Elasticsearch 6.8 and 7.10 get longer at $0.0065 per normalized instance hour. What to upgrade, in what order.

Amazon OpenSearch Service
Elasticsearch
Extended Support
Upgrades
Cost Optimization

Where each version stands

Versions

Standard support ended or ends

Extended Support ends

Extended Support price

Elasticsearch 1.5, 2.3, 5.1–5.5, 6.0–6.7, 7.1–7.8; OpenSearch 1.0–1.2, 2.3–2.9

November 7, 2025

November 7, 2027

From November 7, 2026, a surcharge equal to the instance price

Elasticsearch 5.6 and 7.9

See AWS's version table

November 7, 2028

$0.0065 per normalized instance hour (US East)

Elasticsearch 6.8 and 7.10; OpenSearch 1.3 and 2.19

November 7, 2027 for the Elasticsearch versions

November 7, 2030

$0.0065 per normalized instance hour (US East)

From Amazon OpenSearch Service's support-dates announcements, including the August 2026 update.

Normalized instance hours scale with size: a medium instance counts as two per hour, so the $0.0065 rate is about $0.31 a day for one. That is small. The surcharge equal to the instance price on the oldest versions is not: it doubles the compute bill for those domains from November 7.

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Upgrade order

  1. List every domain, its engine version, instance count and size, and monthly cost.

  2. Delete what is unused. Old logging domains whose data nobody queries are common.

  3. Upgrade the oldest versions first; they are the ones whose cost doubles. In-place upgrades move one major version at a time, so very old domains often go faster as a new domain on a current OpenSearch version with a reindex or snapshot restore.

  4. Test client compatibility. Elasticsearch clients and log shippers pinned to old versions may need updating for OpenSearch.

  5. Consider OpenSearch Serverless for spiky or small workloads while you are moving anyway.

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As of October 25, 2026. Provided as is, for general information, and accurate to the best of our knowledge on the date shown. Not legal, compliance, tax, financial or other professional advice. Prices, limits and vendor services change; check current vendor documentation before relying on anything here. Terms of use.