The Ignition 8.3 Beta Is Here. Try These New Features!

It’s no secret that Ignition 8.3 has been in the works for a while, so we’re very excited to say that the 8.3 beta release is here, giving you the chance to explore its many updates and new features before the full release later this year.

With major changes that increase data processing efficiency, enhance security, streamline management, and speed up your development cycle, Ignition 8.3 is not just an updated version — it’s a completely modernized platform for building the next generation of industrial applications. Ignition 8.3 provides simplified tools and processes; it adds, merges, and improves Ignition modules; and it bridges the OT-IT gap by bringing OT up to IT standards and creating a single source of truth for data. There’s a lot here to explore, so let’s jump right in!

A Reimagined Gateway

The gateway is the heart of Ignition, and we’ve combined years’ worth of user feedback with our increased sophistication in the realms of UI and UX design to make it even better. In 8.3, you’ll find a faster, more intuitive, more powerful gateway web interface which offers easy connection and management across enterprises, integrated search capabilities, enhanced visual organization, and increased customization.

Also, you’ll notice that configuration and diagnostic tools are now housed together, eliminating the need to bounce between sections, which saves precious time during troubleshooting and development.

Another standout addition is deep link launching, which gives you the ability to launch designers, Vision clients, and Perspective sessions within Workstation directly from the homepage. No more hunting for the right launcher or environment; now it's one click and you’re in.

Whether you're an integrator juggling dozens of projects or a plant-floor operator looking for clarity, the gateway now puts more possibilities at your fingertips.

Design Without Limits

The Perspective Module also got major improvements in 8.3 that empower you to design applications faster and with more creative freedom. The brand-new Drawing Editor brings native vector illustration tools, so you can now create and modify SVG graphics within the Ignition designer instead of having to use external software. You can dynamically bind these graphics to live data tags, as well as animate, layer, and fully integrate them into HMI dashboards or user interfaces. The new drawing tools are a great resource for engineers, HMI designers, and many other users — and, frankly, they're a lot of fun to work with.

Additionally, the new form generator streamlines the process of creating dynamic forms. Set your sections, validation rules, and conditional logic once, and Ignition takes care of the rest — generating a responsive, data-connected form that updates in real time. Also, if you're working in remote environments, Ignition 8.3’s new offline mode in the Perspective native apps lets you enter and store data without a network connection, syncing automatically once reconnected.

Updated Time-Series Historian

In Ignition 8.3, data handling also takes a giant leap forward with the new Historian Module Suite. With an abundance of options and capabilities, the Historian Module Suite provides unprecedented control over how you store and analyze your data. This flexible solution includes two modules: the Historian Core Module and the SQL Historian Module. We structured things this way to provide you with the foundation to easily add on additional historian types in the future, and we will be adding more historians soon.

The Historian Core Module features the Internal Historian - QuestDB, a high-performance historian offering rapid data querying, native aggregation and archiving, data aliasing, metadata support, and a zero-configuration setup.Historian Core also includes multiple options for connecting to data sources, the Internal Historian - SQLite, and additional historian functionality.

The SQL Historian Module includes a SQL Historian that makes it easy to connect to external SQL databases, even if you don’t have much experience with them. This historian option is a great fit for large-scale data storage.

Ignition 8.3 also introduces a Historian API, allowing module authors to implement their own custom historian using any technology, enabling full ownership of data infrastructure, no matter how specialized the use case.

Store-and-Forward: Redesigned from the Ground Up

Ignition’s Store-and-Forward engine has been fully redesigned to enhance its speed, reliability, and configuration. The enhancements include a new and robust storage cache for greater stability, improved parallel data forwarding for faster throughput, and more intuitive and precise configuration limits. The update also features new diagnostic tools that provide greater visibility and easier troubleshooting.

The New Event Streams Module

If you’re building complex, event-driven architectures, the new Event Streams Module offers a powerful way to centralize data flow and handle asynchronous events in Ignition. Event Streams allows you to map, filter, and route data between subsystems, so that you can set up actions like capturing alarms, reacting to tag changes, or subscribing to Kafka topics without writing hundreds of lines of code. It also enables you to publish data to brokers, message queues, buses, and more with ease.

With Event Streams, you can now build real-time data pipelines that connect systems that were previously unable to talk to each other — all from a single, drag-and-drop interface. Whether you're publishing to external brokers or transforming incoming streams, Event Streams is the connective tissue that makes modern automation architectures possible.

Next-Level Security

Security is a major focus in Ignition 8.3, introducing multiple layers of protection that align with the most modern IT standards.

The new Secrets Management system ensures that sensitive credentials like passwords, certificates, and encryption keys are secure and can never be exposed in configuration files.8.3 also enhances the gateway’s webpage technology for better security, and Ignition now uses Google Protobuf instead of Java Serialization, making communication between clients and gateways faster, lighter, and more secure. This change directly addresses a vulnerability responsible for 40% of disclosed CVEs.

Improved Enterprise Deployment Management

Ignition 8.3 seamlessly integrates OT into modern IT systems. In Ignition 8.3 all of the configuration is stored in the file system as JSON files instead of an internal database, making them easier to track, share, and version control. Additionally, 3rd party systems can access the configuration securely through a built-in REST API, making it easy to leverage infrastructure as code.

Also, the new gateway-wide deployment mode makes it easier to define and manage environments like development, staging, and production from a single server, and you can automate builds, test changes, and deploy confidently, all with familiar tools and workflows. Whether you're using version control for tracking source code changes or automating configuration through the REST API, Ignition is equipped to work with your DevOps pipeline.

Many Module Improvements

In Ignition 8.3, many modules have been restructured to make pricing and functions easier to understand:

• The Reporting Module now has more charts in the visualization library, and you can also convert a report’s raster images to vector-based SVGs.
• The Serial Module has been merged with the core libraries of the Ignition Platform.
• The Serial and Siemens S7+ modules are now included in the platform license.
• The Web Browser Module is now included with the Vision Module license.
• The OPC COM Module is now simplified to a single price point that includes both DA and HDA functionality, eliminating the need for separate purchases.
• The new Kafka Connector enables you to communicate with Kafka.
• The Twilio Module now includes Voice and WhatsApp to provide even more functionality.
• And, as noted above, the Tag Historian Module has been split into the Historian Core Module and the SQL Historian Module.

Ignition 8.3 Awaits!

Ignition 8.3 contains many more features than I’ve mentioned here; these are just some of the big-ticket features that I recommend trying first. Of course, 8.3 is more than a collection of powerful new features — it’s really a complete rethinking of what a modern industrial platform can be. It brings speed to development and power to every user, from systems engineers to operators, and it’s focused on giving them the tools they’ll need for their systems in the future.

Think of 8.3 as both an ending and a new beginning for Ignition: It’s an ending to one phase of Ignition’s development because it brings Ignition fully up to modern IT standards, and it’s also a new beginning for our users because it will make the challenges of building Industry 4.0 systems much easier to overcome.

The future of Ignition starts now, so download the 8.3 beta today!