Build Cache Node end of life: what happens and your options
The free Develocity Build Cache Node will no longer be distributed or supported after December 31, 2026. Here is what that means for your builds, and the three things a team can do.
What stops on December 31
Gradle Inc. says the free standalone Build Cache Node "will no longer be distributed, supported or available after December 31, 2026." In plain words:
- It will no longer be distributed.
- It will no longer be supported.
- It will no longer be available.
Source: the vendor's official notice.
What keeps working
What happens to a node you already run is for the vendor to say, so read their notice. What holds for any build cache: it only speeds builds up, so if it is slow, empty or down, the worst case is a slower build, not a wrong one.
What changes is that the vendor says it will no longer support it.
Your three options
1. Stay on the old node
Costs nothing today. After the date the vendor will no longer support it, so keeping it safe is on you.
2. Move to the vendor's paid platform
Check the vendor's own notice, linked above, for what it offers and what it costs.
3. Self-host a replacement
Same protocol, your servers, no subscription. FosterStack Cache is one such replacement.
What FosterStack Cache is today
- A self-hosted remote build cache for Gradle. It speaks Gradle's own
HttpBuildCacheprotocol, so moving is mostly a URL change. - Maven too, through the Apache Maven Build Cache Extension.
- MIT licensed. One static binary or one container image on GitHub's registry.
- Releases are signed, and the evidence (SBOM, build provenance, vulnerability statements) is public.
It is early. The paid tiers are not built. Everything you can download today is the free core.
More than kept patched.
- Signed releases you can verify in minutes.
- Build record, parts list (SBOM) and vulnerability statements published with every release.
- Scanned before every release, rescanned every day.
- Images assembled twice on separate machines; the results must match.
- Minimal image, no telemetry. FIPS variant available.
- Vulnerable dependencies fixed fast — our target is 48 hours from disclosure.
How we build · Security policy · Verify a release
Next step
Read the migration guide or the source on GitHub. There is no signup and no form.