Rancher Version History

4 active, 11 end-of-life. 15 versions tracked.

Rancher releases minor versions roughly every 2-3 months. Developed by SUSE, Rancher is a Kubernetes management platform that supports multiple clusters across different providers. Rancher 2.x is the current generation.

Recommendation

For new Kubernetes management setups, use Rancher 2.9+ (latest). It supports the latest Kubernetes versions and includes improved fleet management for multi-cluster deployments.

Version Released End of Life Latest Patch Status
Rancher 2.13 December 17, 2025 June 17, 2027 2.13.3 Active
Rancher 2.12 August 29, 2025 February 28, 2027 2.12.7 Security Only
Rancher 2.11 April 24, 2025 October 24, 2026 2.11.11 Security Only
Rancher 2.10 December 19, 2024 June 19, 2026 2.10.11 Security Only
Rancher 2.9 August 26, 2024 February 26, 2026 2.9.12 End of Life
Rancher 2.8 December 5, 2023 July 22, 2025 2.8.15 End of Life
Rancher 2.7 November 16, 2022 November 18, 2024 2.7.18 End of Life
Rancher 2.6 August 30, 2021 April 30, 2024 2.6.14 End of Life
Rancher 2.5 October 5, 2020 January 31, 2023 2.5.17 End of Life
Rancher 2.4 March 30, 2020 March 31, 2022 2.4.18 End of Life
Rancher 2.3 October 7, 2019 April 7, 2021 2.3.11 End of Life
Rancher 2.2 March 25, 2019 October 15, 2020 2.2.13 End of Life
Rancher 2.1 October 5, 2018 April 19, 2020 2.1.14 End of Life
Rancher 2.0 April 30, 2018 November 1, 2019 2.0.16 End of Life
Rancher 1.6 May 4, 2017 June 30, 2020 1.6.30 End of Life
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Rancher Support Policy

SUSE provides support for Rancher through their Rancher Prime subscription. Community Rancher gets patches for the current and previous minor release. Enterprise customers get extended support windows. Each Rancher version has specific Kubernetes version compatibility requirements.

What You Need to Know

Rancher version must be compatible with your downstream Kubernetes cluster versions. Check the support matrix.

Rancher 2.8+ includes Fleet (GitOps for multi-cluster) as a core component.

RKE2 (Rancher's Kubernetes distribution) is FIPS-compliant and designed for government and regulated environments.

Rancher can manage EKS, GKE, and AKS clusters alongside on-premises clusters from a single UI.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often does Rancher release new versions?
Rancher ships minor versions roughly every 2-3 months. Patch releases come out as needed for security and bug fixes. SUSE provides longer support windows through Rancher Prime subscriptions.
Which Kubernetes versions does Rancher support?
Each Rancher version supports a specific range of Kubernetes versions. Check the Rancher support matrix before upgrading either Rancher or your downstream clusters. Running unsupported combinations can cause management issues.
What's the difference between Rancher and RKE2?
RKE2 is a Kubernetes distribution (like kubeadm or k3s). Rancher is a management platform that can manage RKE2 clusters, as well as EKS, GKE, AKS, and other distributions. You can use Rancher without RKE2 and vice versa.

Related Tools

K8s Deprecation Checker
Vulnerability Scanner
EOL Timeline Visualizer

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