ClickHouse 26.8 LTS: 57 Breaking Changes Since 26.3

If you run ClickHouse in production, you're probably on 26.3 LTS. And now 26.8 LTS has been announced, which means the LTS-to-LTS upgrade conversation starts again. Here's the thing most release posts skip: this is not a one-release hop. Going from 26.3 LTS to 26.8 LTS means crossing 26.4, 26.5, 26.6 and 26.7 as well. Every breaking change in those four releases applies to you, and some of the ones most likely to ruin your day aren't in 26.8 at all. So instead of writing another "here are the 26.8 features" post, I wanted to write the thing I'd actually want before scheduling this upgrade: what breaks, what silently changes, what order to do things in, and what you get for the trouble. A note on release timing As of writing (27 August 2026), 26.8 has been announced but is not fully released yet. The release branch is cut and versioned (v26.8.1.1-lts), but the tag and Docker images have not been published yet, and the upstream changelog still marks the 26.8 section as in progress. By the time you read this, the tag has probably landed. Check for yourself: curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse/master/utils/list-versions/version_date.tsv \ | awk -F '\t' '$1 ~ /^v26\.8\./ {print "26.8 is released - newest: " $1 " (" $2 ")"; f=1; exit} END {if (!f) print "26.8 not released yet"}' version_date.tsv is the list ClickHouse maintains of every released version and its date, so this is the most direct answer available - no auth, no rate limit, nothing to download. As of writing it prints 26.8 not released yet . Worth knowing: the Docker image will lag whatever that command tells you. The Docker Official Images repo trails the GitHub tags by a few patch versions - clickhouse:lts currently resolves to 26.3.20.7 even though 26.3.24.4 has already shipped. So don't treat a missing image as evidence the release hasn't happened. Either way, the timing works in your favour. Historically ClickHouse LTS releases pick up several patch releases quickly - 26.7 had