Both Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 are Long Term Support (LTS) versions of the operating system, both of which had already hit End Of Life (14.04 in 2019 and 16.04 in 2021). The problem is, however, a large number of enterprise businesses are still making use of those versions of the open-source platform. Of course, anyone can always upgrade to the latest LTS version of Ubuntu, but in some use cases, that’s not an option.

Because of this, Canonical[1] has extended their support for both versions of Ubuntu to bring those releases in line with the new 10 years support period that was given to both 18.04 and 20.04 (both of which are also LTS releases).

Of course, there’s a caveat to this. The additional support for 14.04 and 16.04 comes by way of the Extended Support Maintenance, which requires an active Ubuntu Advantage[2] subscription. For home users of Ubuntu, this subscription is free (for up to 3 devices). For businesses, however, the subscription comes with a price.

For those businesses who need to extend the life of Ubuntu 14.04 or 16.04, the cost will depend on the type of service you want (Essential, Standard, or Advanced). The prices for this service range from $25.00 (for the Essential package on a desktop) to $1,500 (for the Advanced package on a physical server). 

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