diff --git a/docs/versionwarning.js b/docs/versionwarning.js
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..6e1223d294a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/versionwarning.js
@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+(function() {
+    // adapted from https://scikit-learn.org/versionwarning.js
+    var latestStable = '10.0.0';
+    var showWarning = (msg) => {
+        $('.bd-header-announcement container-fluid').prepend(
+            '<p style="' +
+            [
+                'padding: 1em',
+                'font-size: 1.5em',
+                'border: 1px solid red',
+                'background: pink',
+            ].join('; ') +
+            '">' + msg + '</p>')
+    };
+    if (location.hostname == 'arrow.apache.org') {
+        var versionPath = location.pathname.split('/')[2];
+        if (versionPath == 'developers') {
+            // developers section in the stable version
+            showWarning('This is documentation for the stable version ' +
+                        'of Apache Arrow. For latest contributing practices ' +
+                        'switch to unstable development ' +
+                        'release <a href="https://arrow.apache.org/docs/dev/developers/contributing.html">version ' +
+                        latestStable + '</a>.')
+        } else if (versionPath.match(/^\d/) || location.pathname.split('/')[3] == 'developers') {
+            // older versions of developers section (with numbered version in the URL)
+            showWarning('This is documentation for an old release of Apache Arrow ' +
+                        '(version ' + versionPath + '). For latest development practices ' +
+                        'switch to unstable development release ' +
+                        '<a href="https://arrow.apache.org/docs/dev/developers/contributing.html">version ' +
+                        latestStable + '</a>.')
+        } else if (versionPath == 'dev') {
+            // older versions (with numbered version in the URL)
+            showWarning('This is documentation for an old release of ' +
+                        'Apache Arrow (version ' + versionPath + '). Try the ' +
+                        '<a href="https://arrow.apache.org/docs/index.html">latest stable ' +
+                        'release</a> (version ' + latestStable + ') or ' +
+                        '<a href="https://arrow.apache.org/docs/dev/index.html">development</a> ' +
+                        '(unstable) version.')
+        } else if (versionPath == 'dev') {
+            showWarning('This is documentation for the unstable ' +
+                        'development version of Apache Arrow.' + 
+                        'The latest stable ' +
+                        'release is <a href="https://arrow.apache.org/docs/index.html">version ' +
+                        latestStable + '</a>.')
+        }
+    }
+})()