Upgrade from Liquibase Community to Liquibase Secure with Maven

Last updated: October 21, 2025

This article walks you through the steps of upgrading from Liquibase Open Source (Community) to Liquibase Secure using Maven. Maven is a build automation tool commonly used for managing Java-based projects and dependencies.

In this guide, you’ll update your project’s pom.xml file to use the Liquibase Secure Maven plugin and ensure that Liquibase Secure functionality is available on your classpath.

Key Changes in Liquibase 5.0.1

  • GroupId change: org.liquibase → com.liquibase

  • Simplified dependencies: liquibase-core is now included in liquibase-commercial

  • Consistent artifact naming across plugins and dependencies

Before you begin

  • A working Maven project that already uses Liquibase Community.

Procedure

1

Identify Your Liquibase Usage

Your upgrade path depends on how your project uses Liquibase:

  • Maven Plugin Users: You run Liquibase commands via Maven goals (e.g., mvn liquibase:update)

  • Dependency Users: You use Liquibase as a library in your application code

  • Both: Some projects use both approaches

2

For Maven plugin users

If you use the Liquibase Maven plugin to run database migrations, update your pom.xml plugin configuration.

Key changes to make:

Change your GroupId: org.liquibase → com.liquibase

Change your version: Update to 5.0.0 or later

Example code
<plugin>
  <groupId>com.liquibase</groupId>
  <artifactId>liquibase-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>5.0.0</version>
  <configuration>
    <!-- your configuration -->
  </configuration>
</plugin>
3

For Dependency Users

If you include Liquibase as a dependency in your application, update your dependency declarations.

Key changes to make:

  • Remove your liquibase-core dependency

  • Update your liquibase-commercial dependency GroupId from org.liquibase to com.liquibase

  • If you only have a liquibase-core dependency, replace this with com.liquibase:liquibase-commercial

Example code
<dependency>
 <groupId>com.liquibase</groupId>
 <artifactId>liquibase-commercial</artifactId>
 <version>5.0.0</version>
</dependency>
4

Maven plugin users: Verify the upgrade

Run a Liquibase goal from your Maven project directory:

mvn liquibase:updateSQL

This generates the SQL statements Liquibase would apply without executing them. If Liquibase Secure is configured correctly, this command will execute without errors.

5

Dependency users: Verify the upgrade

Run your Maven build:

mvn clean package

6

Verify the following:

  • The build completes successfully.

  • No dependency conflicts are reported.

  • Your application starts and Liquibase migrations run as expected.