Update February 20, 2026

We’d like to clarify the announcement that review queues and question closure will not be going away for the time being. We do believe that curation is important. It has been central to what makes Stack Overflow valuable. Removing all review queues or curation altogether is not the direction we currently plan to go. We also want to have more flexibility in the content we allow and make our experience more welcoming. We do believe that there's room for improvement on how site curation is implemented and plan to work more collaboratively with the community on the best way forward. You can expect to hear more from us by February 26th, 2026 to learn more.

As we roll out the beta, we'll continue to add in features. The review queues and question closure will not be a part of the initial release, but will be included in the scope of the overall redesign and will be incorporated as the beta graduates to general availability.

Last July, we announced a redesign of Stack Overflow. In October, we shared a first look into the upcoming design changes and our reasoning behind them. After several rounds of discussion with the community, we’re happy to announce that the first stage of our redesign will soon be ready for you to try out.

Starting next week, head to beta.stackoverflow.com and try the first stage of the redesigned experience! We welcome your thoughts as we shift over to our new design and brand image. Details follow.

Three upcoming major milestones for the Stack Overflow redesign

The team has worked hard to bring you a new design for Stack Overflow, and we’re proud and excited to be able to share it with you soon.

We are breaking the release of the new design into three major milestones:

1. Soft beta launch: Users will be able to try the site, but not all parts of the site will be built yet. We will continue to make updates, fix issues, and release updates and features on a rolling basis. During this phase, users will be able to switch between the beta site and the “classic” site experience. We’ll be here soon.
2. Full beta launch: All major features of the platform that are on our roadmap will be implemented and converted over to the new design. Shortly after the full beta launch, we will begin automatically redirecting some users to the new design as we prepare to transition fully onto the new design. We’re targeting this release for around the end of March.
3. Full release: Stack Overflow will switch fully onto the new design, which will be accessed directly on stackoverflow.com. After a full release, the “classic” site design will be decommissioned. A date for this phase has not yet been decided.

As for when network sites might see the new design, it’s far too early to speculate. We expect that work leading up to a release on Stack Overflow alone, as well as the work that will come after, will keep our arms full for a while to come. Network sites will probably see certain rebranding elements, such as a change in the Stack Overflow logo, in the coming weeks. Aside from these minor updates, however, we don’t expect to update the network this year. You’ll hear more from us once we’re ready to begin work on a network-wide rollout.

What should users expect during the soft beta launch?

During the early period of the beta test, the new Stack Overflow design is still being built. At the time of this release, only the homepage and question pages will be using the new design. We will be actively working to convert more pages over to the new design during the beta. We want to leverage this time for constructive feedback from the community while we are still on this new path.

Most pages that have not yet been converted to the new design will still be accessible through beta.stackoverflow.com; however, they will be using some of the base styles of the new design system. That means some pages may not work exactly as expected until they have been converted to the new design. This is normal and expected at this point in the process.

You will also notice that not all of the tools currently available to users on Stack Overflow have been implemented in the new design. (This includes moderator workflows – mods, please continue to use the main site for now.) We expect some of these tools to be built before full release. However, please note that we plan to retire certain curation workflows, such as close votes and most review queues, in the new design. Additionally, certain post states, such as posts with bounties, community wiki posts, or locked post states, do not yet have a way of being displayed in the new design. During the initial beta phase, posts with these states will be styled the same way as normal posts.

Finally, before full beta release towards the end of March, we expect that questions in the new beta experience will be displayed in a format more similar to that of opinion-based content because we believe it expands how people engage with Stack Overflow and how content is created and shared. We are seeing positive engagement with this format, and we want to continue to evolve it to include accepted answers.

How to provide feedback on the Stack Overflow beta

We are open to all feedback on the new design for Stack Overflow and hope to hear from you soon. You are welcome to provide feedback here on Meta Stack Overflow. There will also be a link in the left sidebar, which says “Help improve beta,” that you may use to submit bug reports, feature requests, and general feedback to the company. Look for this button once you have access to the beta:

For bug reports and feature requests, please be aware that only the homepage and individual question pages are currently using the new design. Bug reports and feature requests concerning these two pages are our highest priority during the early release. We expect issues with the new design on pages that haven’t been fully implemented yet. That said, if you notice any serious issues on any page, we always encourage you to provide those reports as well.

When submitting bug reports and feature requests on Meta Stack Overflow, please ask a new question and tag it with redesign-2026. Please don’t use answers on this post to report bugs or request feature changes. We do not have a way to track our responses to reports in answers over the long term - we’re definitely going to want the ability to do that for this project. Asking a new question and tagging it appropriately helps us categorize questions and quickly respond to issues you raise. (If you forget, we’ll still try to keep an eye out, but a little help from you will make sure these issues don’t fall through the cracks.)

Discussion and general feedback is always welcome and belongs in answers on this post, in new questions, or using the feedback link on beta.stackoverflow.com mentioned above.

We know it can take time to adjust to design changes, especially when the site is so integral to many people’s workflows. Everyone has a chance to try it out now so we can put the most important work in over the next two months. We want to make sure that the classic version of Stack Overflow is still available to use until we’re ready to move over to the new format. We look forward to your feedback soon!