---
mapped_pages:
  - https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/client/curator/current/ilm.html
  - https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/client/curator/current/index.html
---

# Curator and index lifecycle management [ilm]

Beginning with Elasticsearch version 6.6, Elasticsearch has provided [Index Lifecycle Management](http://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/8.15/index-lifecycle-management.md) (ILM) to users with at least a Basic license. ILM provides users with many of the most common index management features as a matter of policy, rather than execution time analysis (which is how Curator works).

