The latest version of the FusionAuth platform, 1.16, has been released, bringing several innovations and improvements to the users, including the ability to run FusionAuth without ElasticSearch, support for ElasticSearch versions 6 and 7, improved system logs, smaller Docker images, testing of SMTP settings, and over 15 bugs squashed. These changes aim to simplify deployments, upgrades, and operations of FusionAuth while providing flexibility for users who need it.