Ingress NGINX is retiring
Kubernetes has announced plans to retire Ingress NGINX next year.
Welcome back to another edition of What’s New Cloud, where I break down the updates shaping Kubernetes, AWS, AI/ML, Terraform, and the broader DevOps space.
Kubernetes has announced plans to retire Ingress NGINX in March 2026. Until then, it’ll only receive light maintenance. After that point, there will be no updates, no fixes, and no security patches. Your existing deployments will keep running, and the repositories will stay online in read-only mode.
What’s New
The retirement comes down to one core issue: the project became too large and too hard to maintain with a small maintainer team. To keep the ecosystem secure and manageable, the community is directing users toward the Gateway API or alternative Ingress controllers.
Why This is important
This shift impacts anyone running Kubernetes in production. A few key points:
Reduced long-term support for a widely used controller
Increased pressure to move toward Gateway API
Higher security risk if teams continue running an unmaintained controller
Clearer direction from the community on modern traffic management patterns
My Take
Ingress NGINX has been a workhorse for years, so seeing it wind down feels big. But the call makes sense.
If you’re using it in production, start planning your migration now.
Gateway API brings better extensibility and a cleaner future path, and getting ahead of the transition will save you stress later.
Stay tuned for more updates. I cover cloud news, AWS releases, AI/ML changes, Terraform automation, and the trends shaping DevOps—three times a week, all in one place.