Kubernetes: Releases, patches & end-of-life
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Lifecycle guide for Kubernetes from Linux Foundation

All releases, patches, maintenance and support periods at a glance

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📅 Last update on 2026-04-16

What is Kubernetes?

Automate product release and end-of-life managementKubernetes (process kubelet; K8s) is an open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management.Originally designed by Google, the project is now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
 

The entire lifecycle of Kubernetes

The following figure shows you the visualised product life cycle of Kubernetes. You can see all releases with the latest patch version, the long-term support characteristics (orange flag in the green circle, the periods for version provision, maintenance and support.
Kubernetes (Linux Foundation) release, version and end-of-life information
XKubernetes (Linux Foundation) release, version and end-of-life information
Figure: Release, patch and end-of-life cycle of product Kubernetes (Linux Foundation)
 

What is the Kubernetes release strategy?

The Kubernetes project maintains release branches for the most recent three minor releases (1.30, 1.29, 1.28). Kubernetes 1.19 and newer receive approximately 1 year of patch support. Kubernetes 1.18 and older received approximately 9 months of patch support.

Facts and figures about Kubernetes

Product
Kubernetes
Vendor
Linux Foundation
Latest version
1.35.4
Number of releases
58
Number of versions
1222
Number of unstable versions
662
Number of versions affected by CVE
422
Licence
Apache License 2.0
Licence details
https://github.com/kyverno/kyverno?tab=Apache-2.0-1-ov-file
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubernetes
 
 

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Lukas Böttcher
Lukas Böttcher
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