diff --git a/docs/changelog.rst b/docs/changelog.rst
index f4b99c5..80c156f 100644
--- a/docs/changelog.rst
+++ b/docs/changelog.rst
@@ -60,7 +60,8 @@
 
 * pybind11's headers and build system now more strictly enforce hidden symbol
   visibility for extension modules. This should be seamless for most users,
-  but see the upgrade guide if you use a custom build system.
+  but see the :doc:`upgrade` if you use a custom build system.
+  `#995 <https://github.com/pybind/pybind11/pull/995>`_.
 
 * Support for ``py::module_local`` types which allow multiple modules to
   export the same C++ types without conflicts. This is useful for opaque
diff --git a/docs/index.rst b/docs/index.rst
index 4e7a848..d236611 100644
--- a/docs/index.rst
+++ b/docs/index.rst
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
 
    intro
    changelog
+   upgrade
 
 .. toctree::
    :caption: The Basics
diff --git a/docs/upgrade.rst b/docs/upgrade.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2fe8470
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/upgrade.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,329 @@
+Upgrade guide
+#############
+
+This is a companion guide to the :doc:`changelog`. While the changelog briefly
+lists all of the new features, improvements and bug fixes, this upgrade guide
+focuses only the subset which directly impacts your experience when upgrading
+to a new version. But it goes into more detail. This includes things like
+deprecated APIs and their replacements, build system changes, general code
+modernization and other useful information.
+
+
+v2.2
+====
+
+Deprecation of the ``PYBIND11_PLUGIN`` macro
+--------------------------------------------
+
+``PYBIND11_MODULE`` is now the preferred way to create module entry points.
+The old macro emits a compile-time deprecation warning.
+
+.. code-block:: cpp
+
+    // old
+    PYBIND11_PLUGIN(example) {
+        py::module m("example", "documentation string");
+
+        m.def("add", [](int a, int b) { return a + b; });
+
+        return m.ptr();
+    }
+
+    // new
+    PYBIND11_MODULE(example, m) {
+        m.doc() = "documentation string"; // optional
+
+        m.def("add", [](int a, int b) { return a + b; });
+    }
+
+
+Stricter enforcement of hidden symbol visibility for pybind11 modules
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+pybind11 now tries to actively enforce hidden symbol visibility for modules.
+If you're using either one of pybind11's :doc:`CMake or Python build systems
+<compiling>` (the two example repositories) and you haven't been exporting any
+symbols, there's nothing to be concerned about. All the changes have been done
+transparently in the background. If you were building manually or relied on
+specific default visibility, read on.
+
+Setting default symbol visibility to *hidden* has always been recommended for
+pybind11 (see :ref:`faq:symhidden`). On Linux and macOS, hidden symbol
+visibility (in conjunction with the ``strip`` utility) yields much smaller
+module binaries. `CPython's extension docs`_ also recommend hiding symbols
+by default, with the goal of avoiding symbol name clashes between modules.
+Starting with v2.2, pybind11 enforces this more strictly: (1) by declaring
+all symbols inside the ``pybind11`` namespace as hidden and (2) by including
+the ``-fvisibility=hidden`` flag on Linux and macOS (only for extension
+modules, not for embedding the interpreter).
+
+.. _CPython's extension docs: https://docs.python.org/3/extending/extending.html#providing-a-c-api-for-an-extension-module
+
+The namespace-scope hidden visibility is done automatically in pybind11's
+headers and it's generally transparent to users. It ensures that:
+
+* Modules compiled with different pybind11 versions don't clash with each other.
+
+* Some new features, like ``py::module_local`` bindings, can work as intended.
+
+The ``-fvisibility=hidden`` flag applies the same visibility to user bindings
+outside of the ``pybind11`` namespace. It's now set automatic by pybind11's
+CMake and Python build systems, but this needs to be done manually by users
+of other build systems. Adding this flag:
+
+* Minimizes the chances of symbol conflicts between modules. E.g. if two
+  unrelated modules were statically linked to different (ABI-incompatible)
+  versions of the same third-party library, a symbol clash would be likely
+  (and would end with unpredictable results).
+
+* Produces smaller binaries on Linux and macOS, as pointed out previously.
+
+Within pybind11's CMake build system, ``pybind11_add_module`` has always been
+setting the ``-fvisibility=hidden`` flag in release mode. From now on, it's
+being applied unconditionally, even in debug mode and it can no longer be opted
+out of with the ``NO_EXTRAS`` option. The ``pybind11::module`` target now also
+adds this flag to it's interface. The ``pybind11::embed`` target is unchanged.
+
+The most significant change here is for the ``pybind11::module`` target. If you
+were previously relying on default visibility, i.e. if your Python module was
+doubling as a shared library with dependents, you'll need to either export
+symbols manually (recommended for cross-platform libraries) or factor out the
+shared library (and have the Python module link to it like the other
+dependents). As a temporary workaround, you can also restore default visibility
+using the CMake code below, but this is not recommended in the long run:
+
+.. code-block:: cmake
+
+    target_link_libraries(mymodule PRIVATE pybind11::module)
+
+    add_library(restore_default_visibility INTERFACE)
+    target_compile_options(restore_default_visibility INTERFACE -fvisibility=default)
+    target_link_libraries(mymodule PRIVATE restore_default_visibility)
+
+
+Local STL container bindings
+----------------------------
+
+Previous pybind11 versions could only bind types globally -- all pybind11
+modules, even unrelated ones, would have access to the same exported types.
+However, this would also result in a conflict if two modules exported the
+same C++ type, which is especially problematic for very common types, e.g.
+``std::vector<int>``. :ref:`module_local` were added to resolve this (see
+that section for a complete usage guide).
+
+``py::class_`` still defaults to global bindings (because these types are
+usually unique across modules), however in order to avoid clashes of opaque
+types, ``py::bind_vector`` and ``py::bind_map`` will now bind STL containers
+as ``py::module_local`` if their elements are: builtins (``int``, ``float``,
+etc.), not bound using ``py::class_``, or bound as ``py::module_local``. For
+example, this change allows multiple modules to bind ``std::vector<int>``
+without causing conflicts. See :ref:`stl_bind` for more details.
+
+When upgrading to this version, if you have multiple modules which depend on
+a single global binding of an STL container, note that all modules can still
+accept foreign  ``py::module_local`` types in the direction of Python-to-C++.
+The locality only affects the C++-to-Python direction. If this is needed in
+multiple modules, you'll need to either:
+
+* Add a copy of the same STL binding to all of the modules which need it.
+
+* Restore the global status of that single binding by marking it
+  ``py::module_local(false)``.
+
+The latter is an easy workaround, but in the long run it would be best to
+localize all common type bindings in order to avoid conflicts with
+third-party modules.
+
+
+New syntax for custom constructors
+----------------------------------
+
+The old placement-new custom constructors are still valid, but the new approach
+greatly improves type safety. Placement-new can be called accidentally with an
+incompatible type (without any compiler errors or warnings), or it can initialize
+the same object multiple times if not careful with the Python-side ``__init__``
+calls. The new-style ``py::init()`` custom constructors prevent such mistakes.
+See :ref:`custom_constructors` for details.
+
+.. code-block:: cpp
+
+    // old
+    py::class<Foo>(m, "Foo")
+        .def("__init__", [](Foo &self, ...) {
+            new (&self) Foo(...); // uses placement-new
+        });
+
+    // new
+    py::class<Foo>(m, "Foo")
+        .def(py::init([](...) { // Note: no `self` argument
+            return new Foo(...); // return by raw pointer
+            // or: return std::make_unique<Foo>(...); // return by holder
+            // or: return Foo(...); // return by value (move constructor)
+        }));
+
+
+Deprecation of some ``py::object`` APIs
+---------------------------------------
+
+To compare ``py::object`` instances by pointer, you should now use
+``obj1.is(obj2)`` which is equivalent to ``obj1 is obj2`` in Python.
+Previously, pybind11 used ``operator==`` for this (``obj1 == obj2``), but
+that could be confusing and is now deprecated (so that it can eventually
+be replaced with proper rich object comparison in a future release).
+
+For classes which inherit from ``py::object``, ``borrowed`` and ``stolen``
+were previously available as protected constructor tags. Now the types
+should be used directly instead: ``borrowed_t{}`` and ``stolen_t{}``
+(`#771 <https://github.com/pybind/pybind11/pull/771>`_).
+
+
+v2.1
+====
+
+Minimum compiler versions are enforced at compile time
+------------------------------------------------------
+
+The minimums also apply to v2.0 but the check is now explicit and a compile-time
+error is raised if the compiler does not meet the requirements:
+
+* GCC >= 4.8
+* clang >= 3.3 (appleclang >= 5.0)
+* MSVC >= 2015u3
+* Intel C++ >= 15.0
+
+
+The ``py::metaclass`` attribute is not required for static properties
+---------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Binding classes with static properties is now possible by default. The
+zero-parameter version of ``py::metaclass()`` is deprecated. However, a new
+one-parameter ``py::metaclass(python_type)`` version was added for rare
+cases when a custom metaclass is needed to override pybind11's default.
+
+.. code-block:: cpp
+
+    // old -- emits a deprecation warning
+    py::class_<Foo>(m, "Foo", py::metaclass())
+        .def_property_readonly_static("foo", ...);
+
+    // new -- static properties work without the attribute
+    py::class_<Foo>(m, "Foo")
+        .def_property_readonly_static("foo", ...);
+
+    // new -- advanced feature, override pybind11's default metaclass
+    py::class_<Bar>(m, "Bar", py::metaclass(custom_python_type))
+        ...
+
+
+v2.0
+====
+
+Breaking changes in ``py::class_``
+----------------------------------
+
+These changes were necessary to make type definitions in pybind11
+future-proof, to support PyPy via its ``cpyext`` mechanism (`#527
+<https://github.com/pybind/pybind11/pull/527>`_), and to improve efficiency
+(`rev. 86d825 <https://github.com/pybind/pybind11/commit/86d825>`_).
+
+1. Declarations of types that provide access via the buffer protocol must
+   now include the ``py::buffer_protocol()`` annotation as an argument to
+   the ``py::class_`` constructor.
+
+   .. code-block:: cpp
+
+       py::class_<Matrix>("Matrix", py::buffer_protocol())
+           .def(py::init<...>())
+           .def_buffer(...);
+
+2. Classes which include static properties (e.g. ``def_readwrite_static()``)
+   must now include the ``py::metaclass()`` attribute. Note: this requirement
+   has since been removed in v2.1. If you're upgrading from 1.x, it's
+   recommended to skip directly to v2.1 or newer.
+
+3. This version of pybind11 uses a redesigned mechanism for instantiating
+   trampoline classes that are used to override virtual methods from within
+   Python. This led to the following user-visible syntax change:
+
+   .. code-block:: cpp
+
+       // old v1.x syntax
+       py::class_<TrampolineClass>("MyClass")
+           .alias<MyClass>()
+           ...
+
+       // new v2.x syntax
+       py::class_<MyClass, TrampolineClass>("MyClass")
+           ...
+
+   Importantly, both the original and the trampoline class are now specified
+   as arguments to the ``py::class_`` template, and the ``alias<..>()`` call
+   is gone. The new scheme has zero overhead in cases when Python doesn't
+   override any functions of the underlying C++ class.
+   `rev. 86d825 <https://github.com/pybind/pybind11/commit/86d825>`_.
+
+   The class type must be the first template argument given to ``py::class_``
+   while the trampoline can be mixed in arbitrary order with other arguments
+   (see the following section).
+
+
+Deprecation of the ``py::base<T>()`` attribute
+----------------------------------------------
+
+``py::base<T>()`` was deprecated in favor of specifying ``T`` as a template
+argument to ``py::class_``. This new syntax also supports multiple inheritance.
+Note that, while the type being exported must be the first argument in the
+``py::class_<Class, ...>`` template, the order of the following types (bases,
+holder and/or trampoline) is not important.
+
+.. code-block:: cpp
+
+    // old v1.x
+    py::class_<Derived>("Derived", py::base<Base>());
+
+    // new v2.x
+    py::class_<Derived, Base>("Derived");
+
+    // new -- multiple inheritance
+    py::class_<Derived, Base1, Base2>("Derived");
+
+    // new -- apart from `Derived` the argument order can be arbitrary
+    py::class_<Derived, Base1, Holder, Base2, Trampoline>("Derived");
+
+
+Out-of-the-box support for ``std::shared_ptr``
+----------------------------------------------
+
+The relevant type caster is now built in, so it's no longer necessary to
+include a declaration of the form:
+
+.. code-block:: cpp
+
+    PYBIND11_DECLARE_HOLDER_TYPE(T, std::shared_ptr<T>)
+
+Continuing to do so won’t cause an error or even a deprecation warning,
+but it's completely redundant.
+
+
+Deprecation of a few ``py::object`` APIs
+----------------------------------------
+
+All of the old-style calls emit deprecation warnings.
+
++---------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
+|  Old syntax                           |  New syntax                                 |
++=======================================+=============================================+
+| ``obj.call(args...)``                 | ``obj(args...)``                            |
++---------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
+| ``obj.str()``                         | ``py::str(obj)``                            |
++---------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
+| ``auto l = py::list(obj); l.check()`` | ``py::isinstance<py::list>(obj)``           |
++---------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
+| ``py::object(ptr, true)``             | ``py::reinterpret_borrow<py::object>(ptr)`` |
++---------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
+| ``py::object(ptr, false)``            | ``py::reinterpret_steal<py::object>(ptr)``  |
++---------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
+| ``if (obj.attr("foo"))``              | ``if (py::hasattr(obj, "foo"))``            |
++---------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+
+| ``if (obj["bar"])``                   | ``if (obj.contains("bar"))``                |
++---------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+