Ensembl BlogThe new Ensembl site provides broader availability of species and genomes, but as it is in active development, not all the features from the legacy Ensembl (Ensembl 116 and Ensembl Genomes 63) versions are available. Here is a list of features profiled between the versions to help you choose which resource to use. These are valid as of July 2026.
Ensembl sites and data remain available via Ensembl Archives, please use whichever resource meets your needs best.
Continue readingEnsembl 116 and Ensembl Genomes 63 are here! Highlights include new pig & cattle assemblies, 26 oat genomes, updated alignments and new Ensembl VEP plugins.
Ensembl 116 and Ensembl Genomes 63 are the final releases on the current Ensembl site and platforms.
All new data from this point will only be available through the new Ensembl site. In the next few months, the ensembl.org site will bring you to the site hosted on beta.ensembl.org.
You will continue to have access to current Ensembl versions via Ensembl Archives, with the latest archives having extended tool support. The Ensembl USEast and Asia mirrors of the current main site will be retired over the transition period this summer.
Continue readingIn the current Ensembl release (Ensembl 115), the GRCh38 human Ensembl/GENCODE reference annotation was updated to include approximately 121,000 new protein-coding transcripts. This expanded set is based on long-read RNA-seq data processed by the manually supervised automated pipeline TAGENE, which is presented as the source in both browser and files.
The latest partial release for GRCh38 on the new Ensembl (partial release 2026-01-26) includes this new geneset. Some genes and genomic features in this set have several hundred transcripts, such as ZBTB20 (ENSG00000181722) which has 360 transcripts.
Continue readingEnsembl 116 and Ensembl Genomes 63 are expected in April 2026. Check out what we’re up to, although we can’t guarantee everything listed here will make it into the release.
Ensembl 116 and Ensembl Genomes 63 will be the final releases on the current Ensembl site and platforms.
From the summer of 2026, all new data will only be available through the new Ensembl site. The site, ensembl.org, will redirect to the site currently hosted on beta.ensembl.org.
Continue readingThe Ensembl Rapid Release site (rapid.ensembl.org) has been archived, and is now available at: rapid-archive.ensembl.org. Any hardcoded URLs with the prefix “rapid.ensembl.org” will redirect to the new Ensembl site at beta.ensembl.org.
Continue readingWe are pleased to announce the release of Ensembl 115, and the corresponding release of Ensembl Genomes 62. In this release – around 121,000 new protein-coding transcripts have been added to the GRCh38 human reference gene set. Two new breeds of cattle are now available (UOA_Tuli_1 and UOA_Wagyu_1) and the sheep reference has been updated to ARS-UI_Ramb_v3.0. Seven new plant species have been added: four oats, two garden peas, and one lablab bean. We have also added two new export modes for Newick trees which help to avoid stable ID clashes.
Continue readingEnsembl 115 and Ensembl Genomes 62 are expected in September 2025. Check out what we’re up to, although we can’t guarantee everything listed here will make it into the final release.
Continue readingWe have released a coordination of genomic resources and analyses to the new Ensembl site: Ensembl Beta – https://beta.ensembl.org/. This Integrated Release, “Beta Release 2025-02”, contains 2,919 genomes, which are available for current and long-term use.
Continue readingWe are pleased to announce the release of Ensembl 114, and the corresponding release of Ensembl Genomes 61. This release brings an updated MANE set (v1.4) for the human GRCh38 assembly. We have updated existing data sets and added lots of exciting new genomes across the different Ensembl sites including rodents, livestock, plant, microbial and metazoa species. Variation data has been updated to EVA release 6 and is available for 39 species.
Continue readingEnsembl 114 and Ensembl Genomes 61 are expected in March 2025. Check out what we’re up to, although we can’t guarantee everything listed here will make it into the final release.
Continue reading