VyOS is split into two branches: long term support and rolling release.
The rolling release branch (git branch “current”) includes the latest code from maintainers and all contributions from community members are merged into it. It’s meant for testing and home lab/non-critical router use and is not guaranteed to be stable.
Long term support branches are periodically split from the current branch. They are stable, and only proven, strictly compatible changes are merged or backported into it.
ISO images of the rolling release are public, while long term support release ISOs are only available to subscribers and contributors in binary form.