Hey everyone, happy to shed some light on this from the desktop client team! 
Why are both 4.x and 33.x receiving releases?
Like many mature software projects â think Firefox ESR, Windows 10 alongside Windows 11, macOS receiving security updates across multiple generations, or Microsoft Office suites being supported in parallel â we maintain more than one major release at a time. Active bug fixes and security patches are backported to older stable branches as long as they are supported. So seeing a 4.0.10 appear after 33.0.2 is completely expected: it simply means a fix was relevant for users still on the 4.x branch.
Who is 4.x actually for?
A significant part of our user base is in enterprise environments where updates go through the enterprise update channel, which intentionally trails the latest release. This is a deliberate, well-established practice: enterprises need time to validate updates against their infrastructure before rolling them out to potentially thousands of seats. Unplanned breakage at that scale isnât just inconvenient â IT support is a substantial cost factor, and avoiding regressions through careful, staged rollouts is exactly what the enterprise channel is designed for. For those customers and their admins, receiving a hardened, well-tested 4.0.x update is the right and safe thing - not a mistake.
Why did the version jump from 4 to 33?
This one is purely about clarity. Starting with version 33, the desktop clientâs major version number is aligned with the Nextcloud server release. This makes it immediately obvious which client generation pairs with which server generation. From here on, the major version will just increment by one as usual. Major releases bring features while point releases bring fixes.
Important: there neither was nor is a dependency between these client and server releases! Older clients will work with newer servers, too, and vice versa.
Any changes to be aware of in 33.x?
In context of this topic, as one example: Starting with 33.0.0, the minimum supported macOS version has been raised from macOS 12 (Monterey) to macOS 13 (Ventura). So the 4.x branch still provides maintenance releases for people on macOS 12 (Monterey).
About a formal maintenance and release schedule
The Nextcloud server has a well-documented maintenance and release schedule, and we know that kind of transparency is valuable. We donât have an equivalent schedule for the desktop client yet, but this is a topic internally. We are already in the process of establishing this but not at the point of public commitment yet.
So which version should I use?
If youâre a regular user on macOS 13 or later, Windows, or Linux: grab whatever is offered by default on the Nextcloud download page.
The 4.x releases are for users and enterprises who are intentionally on that branch for the reasons above.
I hope that clears things up! 