Hi Cole, Thanks so much for reaching out!
To put it simply, the main reason we haven't kept up with the newer versions is that HugeGraph overrides certain steps and enforces its own constraints on some schema definitions (e.g., whether GraphMetaElement can be null). Because of this, upgrading isn't a drop-in or low-cost task, and it comes with quite a few potential compatibility risks. This has indeed caused some feature and security issues, which has been a major headache for us. However, now that the HugeGraph community has graduated from incubator status, upgrading TinkerPop has been officially put on the agenda. We've already drafted an initial proposal and started working on it. Our preliminary plan is to jump straight from 3.5 to 3.7/3.8, based on the following goals: 1. Achieve compatibility with Java 17 + Groovy 4 + TinkerPop 3.x at the lowest modification cost. 2. If TinkerPop 4.0 already supports Java 21, we'd love to test and migrate to it as soon as possible. We have community devs actively leading this effort right now, including updating and breaking down the proposal. You are more than welcome to join in—your help would be a huge boost to speeding up the upgrade process. Just wanted to give you a quick reply first. Our team members will follow up on this soon. We can also open a GitHub discussion or issue for official communication, as some of our developers don't check emails very often. Best, Imba Jin - Behalf the HugeGraph PMC On 2026/06/15 19:40:13 Cole Greer wrote: > Hi everyone, > > I'm one of the maintainers of Apache TinkerPop, and I was taking a look > at how HugeGraph > utilizes TinkerPop when I noticed that HugeGraph is consuming TinkerPop > 3.5.1 (if I > understood this correctly). This is quite an old version of TinkerPop > (2021), and I wanted > to reach out and ask if there's any reason why HugeGraph has remained > pinned to this > version for so long. > > There's been quite a few upgrades to TinkerPop in the last 5 years > including plenty of > new Gremlin steps to expand language capability, improved connection > management stability, > and plenty of performance and security enhancements. I'm curious if > there are any blockers > which have prevented HugeGraph from upgrading, or if there has been a > lack of demand for > new features. > > I'd love to have a discussion with folks here about what role (if any) > you see TinkerPop > playing in HugeGraph's long-term future, as well as what can we do on > the TinkerPop side > to support this vision. > > Please let me know if you have any thoughts regarding the TinkerPop > upgrade path in > HugeGraph, or the long-term role of TinkerPop in the project. > > Thanks, > Cole > >
