# Best practices for testing before upgrade? **URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-testing-before-upgrade/379364 **Category:** Self-hosting **Tags:** stable, hosting **Created:** [August 19, 2025, 10:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-testing-before-upgrade/379364 "2025-08-19T22:38:48Z") **Posts on this page:** 1 **Showing post:** 1
### Author: ![rahim123](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df705f/32.png) [@rahim123](https://meta.discourse.org/u/rahim123) #### Post date: [August 19, 2025, 10:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-testing-before-upgrade/379364/1 "2025-08-19T22:38:48Z")
Hi there, when I migrated my large conventional forum community to Discourse I had to implement a bunch of CSS tweaks in a theme component to make things work the way most of my users prefer. Generally most of these tweaks keep working after a major Discourse version upgrade, but each time a few of them will break and sometimes it takes me a while to find a solution. (I’m on the `stable` branch to avoid the constant flux of the minor point releases.) I would prefer to be able to do so on my own time instead of being under pressure to fix the live forum. The only way I can think to do this is to install a Discourse backup file onto a testbed VM and upgrade that first. But that seems like overkill, as I would have to get a FQDN or at least a subdomain for the testbed, and all sorts of additional hassles. Is there an easier method that’s not occurring to me? Thanks a lot. --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/best-practices-for-testing-before-upgrade/379364)._