R9 was the internal name of the 2024 version. When the software was kind of "rebooted" with a new UI in 2018, we started counting from Release 1 again internally.

And yes, the 2024 version is a beta and it does still have bugs in it which would normally have been fixed before the release, but it is definitely usable. In any case, because of its beta state, we also offer the 2023 release as a fallback. But personally, despite the remaining bugs, I could not go back to 2023 after having had 2024 for more than a year now. 

Keep an eye on our YouTube channel over the coming days, as I am gradually uploading the tutorials about the new features for VUE and PlantFactory 2024 that were still finished in time.