NetBox is used to manage some of the world’s most complex and critical network infrastructure. In any production infrastructure environment managed by a collaborative team, change must be managed with care. This is especially true for significant, compound changes that meaningfully impact operations – like deploying new sites, big equipment refreshes, or complex changes to network topologies. NetBox is a critical tool for planning and executing infrastructure changes. Now, it’s getting even better, in a big way: branching and change management are coming to the NetBox data model.
Better tools for managing change in your infrastructure
When used as a network source of truth, especially when coupled with network automation strategies, some use cases for NetBox are challenging to achieve because it’s hard to plan and prepare for complex changes in NetBox without impacting ongoing operations or automations. In the software development world, this is why we have revision control systems like git, which enable developers to work in branches that are copies of the main codebase, and also why we have change management platforms like GitHub, which unlock collaboration, policy, and automations around software development workflows.
These concepts of branching and change management are now coming to NetBox, and they’re going to change the game for teams working with NetBox for automation, collaborating on complex changes, and integrating NetBox with change processes.

Branching is coming in NetBox 4.1!
NetBox 4.1 will include foundational functionality for branch management – creating, working with, and merging branches of the NetBox data model. In addition, NetBox Enterprise and NetBox Cloud will be getting a host of change management features for collaborating with branches, integrating them into your stack, and enacting change policies and workflows.
Branching in NetBox represents a significant technical challenge. Our goal has been to unlock the power of branching, with zero compromises on the referential integrity enabled by NetBox’s powerful network data model, which is core to NetBox’s value, enabling effective automations and reducing operational mistakes. The result meets that standard and the operationalization and foundational capabilities of NetBox remain the same – no changes to the database, no compromises in the data model – but will now support branches on the data model. We’ll do a deeper dive on the tech and functional implications of branching in NetBox in an upcoming blog post.
Kicking off the Private Preview program for NetBox’s new branch management feature
We recently shared a very simple “sneak peak” on social media (Twitter/X, LinkedIn) hinting at the branching work we’ve been doing. A few folks in Slack asked – is this real, or just a mockup? The answer is, it’s real, and it’s here now. Today we’re kicking off a Private Preview program for branch management in NetBox.
We are seeking interested NetBox users who can commit time to testing NetBox branching in a controlled lab environment and provide feedback on its usability and features. Participants should have basic understanding of other version control systems like git, and should be using NetBox today to model substantial infrastructure that undergoes frequent changes. Participants in the Private Preview will get hands-on experience with the new branching features, and their feedback will inform the functionality that will be released with NetBox 4.1 later this year. In addition, participants in the branching Private Preview will get an early look at our work on change management features and have the opportunity to provide design partner feedback.
To ensure we can provide adequate guidance and support to all participants, we unfortunately need to limit the number of available spaces. If you’re interested, please contact us at product@netboxlabs.com and provide us with your name, your company, title, and brief description of your use cases for branching with NetBox. We’re excited to hear from you and you can expect us to follow up quickly.