Canonical Kubernetes: On-Prem Kubernetes Ledger

Part of the On-Prem Kubernetes Ledger (edition 2026-10-13). How the scores work: methodology.

1. Snapshot

Tier: Challenger
Owner: Canonical Ltd., privately held, founder-controlled (Mark Shuttleworth)
Licence model: Open source and free to use; support and security maintenance through Ubuntu Pro, priced per machine ($500 to $3,400 per server per year list)
Products scored: Canonical Kubernetes 1.36 LTS (k8s snap and charms), Charmed Kubernetes 1.35, MicroK8s v1.36
Latest release: Canonical Kubernetes 1.36 LTS (2026-08-24); MicroK8s v1.36 (2026-05-25); Charmed Kubernetes 1.35 (2026-04-16)
Next signal: Kubernetes 1.37 not yet shipped; next LTS two years after 1.36 per the 2025 policy
Archetype: Long-support upstream packager
Evidence grade: A. Release dates and features come from Canonical release notes, the GitHub API and Canonical blogs; per-minor end dates are derived from the published policy and partner or certification facts were not found.

2. Scorecard

Dimension	Score	Direction
Capability today	63.2 / 100	higher is better
Momentum since end of 2022	+9.8 points	higher is better
Credibility	17.5 / 25	higher is better
Commercial risk	4.0 / 25	lower is better
Technical lock-in	5.0 / 25	lower is better
Integrator fit	9.5 / 20	higher is better
AI leverage	5.5 / 20	higher is better
Ledger Index	62.5 / 100	balanced weights

3. Capability by domain

Scores 0 to 5 against fixed anchors; total is weighted to 100.

Domain (weight)	2016	2019	2022	Today
Install, upgrade and lifecycle (12)	1.5	3	3.5	4.5
Bare metal, edge and on-prem infrastructure (10)	3	3.5	4	4.5
Multi-cluster and fleet management (10)	1	1	1	2
Networking (10)	2	3	4	4.5
Storage and data protection (10)	1	2.5	3	3
Security and compliance (12)	1.5	3	3	4
Developer platform (8)	1	1.5	2	2
Observability and day-2 operations (8)	2	3	3.5	3.5
VMs on Kubernetes (VMware exit) (10)	0	0	0	0
GPU and accelerator workloads (10)	0	2	2.5	3
Total / 100	26.0	45.6	53.4	63.2

Year by year: 2016: 26.0 · 2017: 26.0 · 2018: 26.0 · 2019: 45.6 · 2020: 45.6 · 2021: 45.6 · 2022: 53.4 · 2023: 53.4 · 2024: 53.4 · 2025: 53.4 · 2026: 63.2

What moved the score

Year	Domain	Change	Points	Trigger
2019	Bare metal, edge and on-prem infrastructure	3 → 3.5	+1.0	Charmed Kubernetes 1.17 on AWS, GCE, Azure, OpenStack, LXD and MAAS
2019	Developer platform	1 → 1.5	+0.8	Registry charm with containerd (1.16), dashboard
2019	GPU and accelerator workloads	0 → 2	+4.0	CDK GPU workers with CUDA and nvidia-docker set up by the charms
2019	Install, upgrade and lifecycle	1.5 → 3	+3.6	Charmed Kubernetes 1.17: Juju upgrades with snap coherence, minors within ten days of upstream
2019	Networking	2 → 3	+2.0	Calico, Canal, flannel, Tigera Secure EE, MetalLB, nginx ingress
2019	Observability and day-2 operations	2 → 3	+1.6	Prometheus and Grafana integration (1.16), Nagios checks (1.17)
2019	Security and compliance	1.5 → 3	+3.6	Charmed Kubernetes 1.17 CIS benchmark, AWS IAM and Keystone auth, Kata
2019	Storage and data protection	1 → 2.5	+3.0	Default cloud storage classes (1.17), Ceph relations, NFS provisioner
2022	Bare metal, edge and on-prem infrastructure	3.5 → 4	+1.0	Charmed 1.26 multi-arch charms incl. arm64 and s390x; MicroK8s HA edge clusters
2022	Developer platform	1.5 → 2	+0.8	MicroK8s registry plus community add-ons (Kubeflow, KEDA, Portainer)
2022	GPU and accelerator workloads	2 → 2.5	+1.0	NVIDIA driver install and upgrades on GPU workers, MicroK8s gpu add-on
2022	Install, upgrade and lifecycle	3 → 3.5	+1.2	Charmed and MicroK8s minors within days of upstream, three minors supported
2022	Networking	3 → 4	+2.0	Kube-OVN with BGP (1.25-1.26), Multus, dual-stack option
2022	Observability and day-2 operations	3 → 3.5	+0.8	Canonical Observability Stack Lite integration (1.25, Sep 2022)
2022	Storage and data protection	2.5 → 3	+1.0	Ceph CSI charm, MicroK8s Mayastor and Rook-Ceph add-ons
2026	Bare metal, edge and on-prem infrastructure	4 → 4.5	+1.0	k8s snap on amd64, arm64, s390x, ppc64el; MAAS, CAPI provider, air-gap guide, telco EPA
2026	GPU and accelerator workloads	2.5 → 3	+1.0	NVIDIA GPU and Network Operators via charms, AMD add-on; no DRA or sharing guide
2026	Install, upgrade and lifecycle	3.5 → 4.5	+2.4	k8s snap: 12-year LTS (1.32, 1.36), 14-month interims, CAPI in-place upgrades, 1-12 day lag
2026	Multi-cluster and fleet management	1 → 2	+2.0	Cluster API providers and Terraform modules; no fleet console, GitOps or policy layer
2026	Networking	4 → 4.5	+1.0	Cilium eBPF without kube-proxy (1.36), Gateway API, BGP, IPv6, SR-IOV and DPDK
2026	Security and compliance	3 → 4	+2.4	k8s snap 1.34 FIPS 140-3 and DISA STIG, CIS audit; no bundled admission or runtime policy

4. Direction, 2023 to 2026

Each item carries one theme and one driver (V vision, C customer need, M market window, U upstream, P portfolio).

Date	Item	Theme	Driver
2023-01	Ubuntu Pro GA covers Kubernetes support	D12 Packaging and licensing	P
2023-04	Charmed Kubernetes 1.27 adds Cilium and NVIDIA Network Operator	D4 Networking	C
2023-11	Charmed Kubeflow 1.8 GA with air-gapped MLOps	D13 Accelerators	M
2024-02	Charmed Kubernetes 1.29: Ops refactor and NVIDIA GPU Operator	D13 Accelerators	C
2024-12	Canonical Kubernetes 1.32, first LTS k8s snap	D1 Install and lifecycle	V
2025-02	12-year Kubernetes LTS commitment with Ubuntu Pro	D12 Packaging and licensing	V
2025-09	k8s snap 1.34: FIPS 140-3, DISA STIG, etcd default	D9 Security	C
2026-08	k8s snap 1.36 LTS: Cilium kube-proxy replacement, multi-peer BGP	D4 Networking	U

Centre of gravity: Packaging and licensing (2), Networking (2), Accelerators (2)
Driver mix: Vision 25%, Customer need 38%, Market window 12%, Upstream 12%, Portfolio 12%

5. Credibility: 17.5 / 25

Criterion	Score	Basis
Cadence	4	New minors every four months by stated policy, mostly within days; snap 1.33 and 1.36 came two to four months late
Roadmap transparency	3	Public release notes, GitHub repos and docs sources; no written roadmap
Say-do	3.5	3 of 4 resolved promises kept (Ubuntu Pro GA, biennial LTS, dqlite removal); four-month cadence only partly kept
Velocity	3	One to three substantive features per release, e.g. FIPS and STIG (1.34), kube-proxy replacement (1.36)
Lifecycle stability	4	12-year LTS and 14-month interims, but three parallel product lines and k8s-dqlite removed without migration

Say-do record, 2023 to 2026: 5 items 2023-2026: 3 shipped (Ubuntu Pro GA, 1.36 LTS two years after 1.32, k8s-dqlite removal), 1 partial (four-month interim cadence), 1 not confirmed (MicroK8s and Charmed Kubernetes rebased on Canonical Kubernetes). 16 pass-1 items removed as unsupported.

6. Commercial risk: 4.0 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Price and licence volatility	1	Ubuntu Pro since Jan 2023 with stable per-machine pricing; no licence change found
Purchase constraints	0.5	Free open-source software for any size; support per machine, free personal tier up to 5 machines
Channel and access	0.5	Open downloads, public docs and source
Owner stability	1	Private, founder-controlled company; no ownership change
Cost of staying supported	1	Free updates; LTS minors with at least 12 years of security fixes under Ubuntu Pro

Security record of the product itself: No CISA KEV entry and no critical (CVSS 9+) CVE found for Canonical Kubernetes, Charmed Kubernetes or MicroK8s components 2023-2026; no GitHub advisories.

7. Technical lock-in: 5.0 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Formats	0.5	CNCF-certified across all three lines; standard upstream components and APIs
Export path	1	Velero backup and restore documented; workloads portable
Stack coupling	1.5	Snap and Juju charm delivery on Ubuntu; CNI and storage replaceable
Hardware / cloud coupling	0	Four CPU architectures, bare metal or clouds, air-gapped installs
Skills and tooling coupling	2	Charmed operations need Juju and charm skills; the k8s snap needs only kubectl

8. Integrator fit: 9.5 / 20

Criterion	Score	Basis
Partner programme openness	2.5	Canonical partner programmes exist; current tiers and Kubernetes specialisation not verified
Multi-tenancy and self-service	1.5	Namespaces and RBAC only; no projects, tenant UI or hosted control planes
API and infrastructure-as-code	3.5	Cluster API bootstrap and control-plane providers, Terraform modules, Juju
Skills and certification	2	No Canonical Kubernetes certification found; CNCF CKA applies

9. AI leverage: 5.5 / 20

Strand	Today	Latest step
AI workload support	0.5	2024: GPU operator charm for AI nodes; no inference serving at the platform layer
AI platform stack	3.5	2023: Charmed Kubeflow 1.7-1.8 GA with KServe serving and air-gapped installs
AI-assisted operations	0	2016: No operator AI assistant found
Agent openness	1.5	2024: k8sd API, Terraform modules and CAPI providers; no official MCP server

AI say-do: 0 dated AI promises found; Charmed Kubeflow releases were announced at GA. AI support is the Kubeflow MLOps stack and NVIDIA operators; there is no operator assistant or official MCP server.

10. Reading

Canonical is consolidating its three Kubernetes lines around the k8s snap, with upstream minors in days and a 12-year LTS track sold through Ubuntu Pro. The record shows fast, conformant packaging, FIPS and STIG work and strong telco networking, but no fleet manager, developer platform, VM support or AI assistant. Buyers get low lock-in and low cost at the price of assembling management, policy and virtualization themselves.

11. Open questions and evidence caveats

End-of-support dates per minor are derived from the 2025 policy; Canonical does not publish them per release.
Three overlapping product lines (Charmed, MicroK8s, k8s snap) make the supported path less clear; the promised rebase is not confirmed.
Partner programme and certification facts were not found and rest on general Canonical material.
GPU support is documented for Charmed Kubernetes and MicroK8s but not for the k8s snap.