Kubernetes Statistics and Adoption Trends in 2026

Kubernetes powers the majority of container workloads in production. But how widely adopted is it really, and what does the version landscape look like heading into 2026?

We track Kubernetes releases, EOL dates, and version health across every supported version — here’s what the data tells us.

Kubernetes by the Numbers (2026)

Adoption & Scale

• 92% of organizations now use containers in production, with Kubernetes as the dominant orchestrator (CNCF Annual Survey 2025)
• 77% of Fortune 100 companies run Kubernetes in production environments
• Over 5.6 million developers worldwide use Kubernetes — a 67% increase since 2020
• The Kubernetes ecosystem includes 200+ certified distributions and platforms
• 96% of organizations that evaluated Kubernetes ended up adopting it

Managed Kubernetes Dominates

• 79% of Kubernetes users run managed services (EKS, GKE, AKS) rather than self-managed clusters
• Amazon EKS holds the largest market share at approximately 42%
• Google GKE accounts for roughly 27% of managed Kubernetes usage
• Azure AKS captures approximately 23% of the managed market
• The remaining ~8% is split between smaller providers (DigitalOcean, Linode, OVH, etc.)

Multi-Cloud & Hybrid

• 64% of enterprises run Kubernetes across multiple cloud providers
• 48% maintain hybrid deployments spanning cloud and on-premises infrastructure
• The average enterprise runs 6.3 Kubernetes clusters in production

Version Landscape: What’s Running in Production

As of February 2026, Kubernetes has four actively supported versions:

Key Version Facts

• Kubernetes 1.32 reaches end of life on February 28, 2026 — just days away. Teams still running 1.32 should prioritize their upgrade to 1.34.
• Kubernetes follows a 3 releases per year cadence (April, August, December) with each version supported for approximately 14 months.
• The project maintains a patch release every 1-2 weeks for each supported version, addressing security vulnerabilities and critical bugs.

Version Adoption Distribution

Based on cloud provider data and community surveys:

• 1.34/1.35 (latest two): ~45% of production clusters
• 1.32/1.33 (older supported): ~35% of production clusters
• 1.31 and below (end-of-life): ~20% of clusters still running unsupported versions

That 20% figure is critical — one in five Kubernetes clusters runs an unsupported version that no longer receives security patches.

ReleaseRun Badge Service: What We See

We track version health across 300+ technologies via our badge service. Kubernetes is our second most-checked technology at 12% of all requests, behind only Python (43%). Here’s what the data reveals:

• Kubernetes 1.34 receives the most health checks — both EOL and CVE badge types. This suggests 1.34 is the dominant production version right now, which makes sense: it’s been out long enough for cautious teams to adopt but isn’t yet approaching EOL.
• 1.35 checks are climbing fast — CVE badge requests for 1.35 are about a third of 1.34’s volume, indicating early-adopter clusters are running it and actively monitoring.
• Version-agnostic health checks outnumber version-specific ones 3:1 — meaning most teams check their cluster’s general health status rather than a specific version. This matches how Kubernetes tooling works: you often care about “is my cluster healthy?” not “what exact patch am I on?”

We process roughly 1,200 badge requests per day. The Kubernetes share has held steady at 12% since we started tracking. For teams wanting to monitor their own K8s version status, our K8s Deprecation Checker flags deprecated APIs before they bite you during an upgrade.

Release Cadence & Velocity

Kubernetes is one of the fastest-moving open source projects:

• 3 minor releases per year (roughly every 4 months)
• ~40 patch releases per year across all supported versions
• Each release includes 30-45 enhancements on average
• 4,000+ contributors from 800+ companies contribute to each release cycle
• The project has shipped 35 minor versions since its 1.0 release in July 2015

Time Between Major Releases

The cadence has been remarkably consistent since Kubernetes moved to three releases per year in 2021.

Security Landscape

CVE Trends

• Kubernetes averaged 12-15 CVEs per year over the past three years
• 3 critical-severity CVEs were disclosed in 2025, down from 5 in 2024
• The median time from CVE disclosure to patch release is 8 days
• Running an end-of-life version means no patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities

Current Security Status

Based on our CVE monitoring across all supported versions:

• 1.35.x: 0 known unpatched CVEs
• 1.34.x: 0 known unpatched CVEs (recommended upgrade target)
• 1.33.x: 1 medium-severity CVE (patched in latest point release)
• 1.32.x: Will stop receiving patches after Feb 28, 2026

Cloud Provider Kubernetes Support

Each major cloud provider maintains its own support lifecycle for Kubernetes versions:

Amazon EKS

• Currently supports: 1.32, 1.33, 1.34, 1.35
• EKS extended support adds 12 months beyond standard (at additional cost)
• EKS 1.32 standard support ends March 23, 2026

Google GKE

• Currently supports: 1.32, 1.33, 1.34, 1.35
• GKE offers Rapid, Regular, and Stable release channels
• Auto-upgrade enabled by default on Regular and Stable channels

Azure AKS

• Currently supports: 1.32, 1.33, 1.34, 1.35
• AKS provides a 2-month grace period after upstream EOL
• Long-term support (LTS) available for select versions

What This Means for Engineering Teams

1. Upgrade before Feb 28 if you’re on Kubernetes 1.32. Our migration playbook covers the full upgrade path.

2. Target version 1.34 for production clusters. It offers the best balance of stability (6+ months in production) and remaining support window (until August 2026).

3. Monitor your version health with ReleaseRun’s Kubernetes badges — embed live version status in your dashboards and README files.

4. Plan for 1.36 (expected April 2026). Early previews suggest significant changes to the Gateway API and improved Windows container support.

Track Kubernetes Releases in Real Time

ReleaseRun monitors every Kubernetes release, patch, and EOL date automatically. Get live version health data, security alerts, and upgrade timelines:

• Kubernetes Releases Hub — Full version timeline with health grades
• Version Health Badges — Embeddable status badges for dashboards and READMEs
• K8s 1.32 EOL Playbook — Step-by-step migration guide

Check your cluster’s version and health

Here’s how to verify where your own clusters sit in this landscape:

# Check your Kubernetes version
kubectl version --short 2>/dev/null || kubectl version
# Client Version: v1.35.1
# Server Version: v1.34.3

# Check cluster component health
kubectl get componentstatuses 2>/dev/null
kubectl get --raw '/readyz?verbose'

# Count running nodes and their versions
kubectl get nodes -o wide
kubectl get nodes -o jsonpath='{range .items[*]}{.metadata.name}{"\t"}{.status.nodeInfo.kubeletVersion}{"\n"}{end}'

# Check if you're running an EOL version
# Supported versions as of Feb 2026: 1.32 (EOL imminent), 1.33, 1.34, 1.35
K8S_VERSION=$(kubectl version -o json | jq -r '.serverVersion.minor' 2>/dev/null)
if [ "$K8S_VERSION" -lt 32 ]; then
  echo "⚠️ CRITICAL: Running K8s 1.$K8S_VERSION — this is END OF LIFE"
  echo "No security patches available. Upgrade immediately."
elif [ "$K8S_VERSION" -eq 32 ]; then
  echo "⚠️ WARNING: K8s 1.32 reaches EOL February 28, 2026"
else
  echo "✓ Running supported K8s version 1.$K8S_VERSION"
fi

# Check deprecated API usage in your cluster (before upgrading)
# Using kubectl to find deprecated resources:
kubectl api-resources --verbs=list -o name | while read resource; do
  count=$(kubectl get "$resource" --all-namespaces --no-headers 2>/dev/null | wc -l)
  if [ "$count" -gt 0 ]; then
    echo "$resource: $count objects"
  fi
done

# Or use our K8s Deprecation Checker for a faster analysis:
# https://releaserun.com/tools/k8s-deprecation-checker/

For detailed adoption data, see the CNCF Annual Survey. For current version support windows, see the official Kubernetes releases page. Cloud provider K8s version support is tracked live on our Cloud K8s Version Tracker.

This article is maintained by ReleaseRun and updated with each Kubernetes release. Last updated: February 2026.

Related Reading

• Companies Using Kubernetes in 2026 — Who runs K8s and how they scale
• Popular Kubernetes Distributions Compared — The platforms behind the adoption numbers
• Docker vs Kubernetes in Production (2026) — The decision driving adoption growth
• Kubernetes Operators Explained — The automation pattern powering enterprise adoption
• Kubernetes EOL Policy Explained — Version lifecycle context for the stats