SilverStripe applications should be kept up to date with the latest security releases. Usually an update or upgrade to your SilverStripe installation means overwriting files, flushing the cache and updating your database-schema.
For projects managed through Composer, update the version number of `framework` and `cms` to `^3.2` in your `composer.json` file and run `composer update`.
This will also add extra dependencies, the `reports` and `siteconfig` modules. SilverStripe CMS is becoming more modular, and [composer is becoming the preferred way to manage your code](/getting_started/composer).
* Extract and replace system folders from your download (Deleting instead of "copying over" existing folders ensures that files removed from the new SilverStripe release are not persisting in your installation).
* As of SilverStripe CMS 3.2.0 you will also need to include the `reports` and `siteconfig` modules to ensure feature parity with previous versions of the CMS.
* "Micro" releases (x.y.z) are explicitly backwards compatible, "minor" and "major" releases can deprecate features and change APIs (see our [release process](/contributing/release_process) for details)
* If you've made custom branches of SilverStripe core, or any thirdparty module, it's going to be harder to upgrade.
* The more custom features you have, the harder it will be to upgrade. You will have to re-test all of those features, and adapt to API changes in core.
* Customizations of a well defined type - such as custom page types or custom blog widgets - are going to be easier to upgrade than customisations that modify deep system internals like rewriting SQL queries.
