Longhorn: Virtualization Storage Ledger 2026 Scorecard

Part of the Virtualization Storage Ledger (edition 2026-10-16). How the scores work: methodology.

Snapshot

Type: community project (CNCF Incubating), packaged by SUSE as SUSE Storage
Owner: The Longhorn Authors under the CNCF (Sandbox 2019-10-11, Incubating 2021-11-04); started by Rancher Labs, which SUSE bought in 2020; SUSE is private under EQT
Licence: Apache 2.0; free community builds; SUSE Storage and SUSE Virtualization sold through Rancher Prime subscriptions, prices not published
Latest release: 1.13.0 (2026-09-29); inside SUSE Virtualization: Harvester 1.9.0 (2026-09-16) with Longhorn 1.12.1
Support lifecycle: upstream: one year per release; SUSE Storage Prime: 1.12.1 EOM 2027-02-13 and EOL 2028-02-13; SUSE says production clusters should run Prime or Stable versions only
Next milestone: 1.12.2 (rc1 on 2026-10-15) and Harvester 1.9.1 with the fix for VM shutdown on upgrade; no dates published
Hypervisors: KubeVirt only, through SUSE Virtualization (Harvester) and plain KubeVirt on Kubernetes; no VMware, Hyper-V, Proxmox VE or XCP-ng (Longhorn README and Harvester release notes)
Tier: Kubernetes-native storage
Archetype: Dependable builder
Evidence grade: B. Release dates and contents for Longhorn 1.6, 1.8 and 1.10 to 1.13 and for Harvester 1.6 to 1.9 were read from GitHub, the SUSE lifecycle page and the Longhorn docs. Ownership history comes from Wikipedia. Longhorn 1.0 to 1.5, Harvester 1.1 to 1.5, partner terms and prices were not read, so the 2020 to 2023 steps and the 2023 direction record are thin.

Scope of the scores: Longhorn is a Kubernetes CSI storage system. It is in this Ledger because it is the default VM storage of SUSE Virtualization (Harvester) and serves KubeVirt VM disks with synchronous replication, live migration and automatic failover. It cannot serve a classic hypervisor. It is scored as a community project with sustainability risk rows, because the open-source project is what SUSE packages and nobody else sells it.

Scorecard

Dimension	Score	Direction
Capability today	60.3 / 100	higher is better
Momentum since end of 2022	+14.3 points (2020 to 2022: +3.6)	higher is better
Credibility	17.5 / 25	higher is better
Sustainability risk	8.5 / 25	lower is better
Technical lock-in	11.0 / 25	lower is better
Integrator fit	12.0 / 20	higher is better
AI leverage	2.0 / 20	higher is better
Ledger Index	57.9 / 100	balanced weights; see the methodology

Capability by domain, 2015 to today

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

Domain (weight)	2015	2019	2022	Today
Data services core (15)	n/a	n/a	2	2.5
Resilience and HA (15)	n/a	n/a	2.5	3.5
Performance and protocols (12)	n/a	n/a	1.5	2.5
Hypervisor integration (12)	n/a	n/a	2.5	3
Scale and topology (10)	n/a	n/a	2	2.5
Data protection and DR (10)	n/a	n/a	2.5	3
Security (8)	n/a	n/a	1.5	2.5
Operations and automation (8)	n/a	n/a	2.5	3.5
Hardware and deployment freedom (5)	n/a	n/a	3.5	4
Kubernetes and containers (5)	n/a	n/a	4	4.5
Total / 100	n/a	n/a	46.0	60.3

Year by year: 2020: 42.4 · 2021: 46.0 · 2022: 46.0 · 2023: 46.0 · 2024: 49.3 · 2025: 52.8 · 2026: 60.3

What moved the score

Year	Domain	Change	Points	Trigger
2021	Hypervisor integration	1 → 2.5	+3.6	Harvester 1.0.0 GA (21 December; year inferred from the bundled Longhorn 1.2.3): default VM storage with live migration on KubeVirt
2024	Hardware and deployment freedom	3.5 → 4	+0.5	1.6.0: Talos and OKD support, V2 engine on ARM64 in preview; V1 ARM64 date not read
2024	Performance and protocols	1.5 → 2	+1.2	1.6.0: V2 data engine on SPDK in preview (half step)
2024	Security	1.5 → 2.5	+1.6	1.6.0: block volume encryption; Harvester 1.6.0 (2025) marks V1 volume encryption GA in SUSE Virtualization; no in-flight encryption or external key manager
2025	Data protection and DR	2.5 → 3	+1.0	1.8.0: several backup stores with a default target; Harvester 1.8.0 (2026) backs up guest-cluster PVCs
2025	Hypervisor integration	2.5 → 3	+1.2	Harvester 1.6.0 and 1.7.0: V1 volume encryption GA, online resize from the VM page, RWX block volumes shared by several VMs, third-party multipath
2025	Kubernetes and containers	4 → 4.5	+0.5	1.8.0 and 1.10.0: automatic RWX expansion and CSIStorageCapacity; 1.11.0 (2026) adds ReadWriteOncePod and allowedTopologies
2025	Operations and automation	2.5 → 3	+0.8	1.8.0: Helm controller installs on RKE2 and K3s, automatic RWX volume expansion
2026	Data services core	2 → 2.5	+1.5	1.12.0 and 1.13.0: V2 data engine GA with fast linked clones and volume group snapshots; erasure-coded sharding still experimental
2026	Operations and automation	3 → 3.5	+0.8	1.11.0 and 1.13.0: S.M.A.R.T. disk health monitoring, V2 live upgrade from 1.12.2, global manager; no Terraform or Ansible provider
2026	Performance and protocols	2 → 2.5	+1.2	1.12.0: V2 data engine GA upstream; Harvester 1.9.0 ships it as Technical Preview, so the second half step waits
2026	Resilience and HA	2.5 → 3.5	+3.0	1.11.0 and 1.12.0: rebuild pulls from several replicas, balance-aware disk scheduling, topology-aware provisioning; no stretched or metro mode
2026	Scale and topology	2 → 2.5	+1.0	1.11.0 and 1.13.0: balance-aware disk scheduling and longhorn-global-manager for several clusters

Direction, 2023 to 2026

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

Date	Item	Theme	Driver
2024-02	1.6.0: block volume encryption, V2 preview gains snapshots, backup and ARM64, Talos and OKD support	Security	C
2025-01	1.8.0: several backup stores with a default target, automatic RWX expansion, Helm controller installs, V2 experimental live migration	Data protection	C
2025-08	Harvester 1.6.0: third-party storage for guest clusters, V1 volume encryption GA, online expansion, V2 storage network	Security	C
2025-09	1.10.0: V2 engine interrupt mode, volume and snapshot cloning, replica rebuild QoS, volume expansion, IPv6 for V1	Performance	V
2025-12	Harvester 1.7.0: online resize from the VM page, V2 volume expansion, RWX block volumes to several VMs, third-party multipath	Hypervisor integration	C
2026-01	1.11.0: rebuild from several replicas, balance-aware disk scheduling, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring, V2 engine to Technical Preview, hotfix images	Resilience	C
2026-04	Harvester 1.8.0: VM disks move between Longhorn and external CSI without downtime, backend-enforced Rancher roles	Hypervisor integration	C
2026-06	1.12.0: V2 data engine GA, topology-aware provisioning, IPv6 and dual stack for V2, V2 backing images removed	Performance	V
2026-09	Harvester 1.9.0: V2 engine to Technical Preview in Harvester, unified backup framework, concurrent live migration; notes advise against upgrading yet	Data protection	C
2026-09	1.13.0: V2 live upgrade from 1.12.2, volume group snapshots, experimental erasure-coded sharding, global manager, Kubernetes 1.34 or later	Operations	C
2026-10	1.12.2-rc1 and Harvester 1.9.1-rc3 with the permanent fix for VM shutdown on upgrade	Operations	C

Centre of gravity: Security (2), Data protection (2), Performance (2)
Blind spots (no items): Data services, Scale, Hardware, Kubernetes, Packaging, Licensing, AI
Driver mix: Vision 18%, Customer need 82%, Market window 0%, Upstream 0%, Portfolio 0%
Idea-to-need index: 0.18 (0 = demand-pulled, 1 = thesis-pushed)

Credibility: 17.5 / 25

Criterion	Score	Basis
Cadence	4	Minors in 2025-09, 2026-01, 2026-06 and 2026-09, about every four to five months, with patch lines; no published calendar
Roadmap transparency	3.5	Public repository, issue tracker and release notes that name planned items; no roadmap page
Say-do	3.5	V2 engine went from Technical Preview (1.11, 2026-01) to GA (1.12, 2026-06) in four months; fast V2 cloning slipped from 1.12.1 to 1.13; Harvester still ships V2 as Technical Preview
Velocity	4	Several substantive items per minor since 1.10
Lifecycle stability	2.5	One year of upstream support per release; Kubernetes minimum jumped to 1.34 in 1.13; hotfix images for 1.10.0 and 1.11.0; Harvester 1.9.0 notes advise against upgrading

Sustainability risk: 8.5 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Maintainer concentration	3	SUSE engineers run the releases and the README routes support bundles and vulnerability reports to SUSE addresses; 595 contributing organisations in the CNCF record
Backer health	2	Backed by SUSE, private under EQT since 2023; CNCF Incubating since 2021-11-04; contributors down 5 percent year on year
Licence-change risk	1	Apache 2.0 under CNCF ownership, which blocks a unilateral relicence
Abandonment signs	0.5	Four minors in twelve months and 1.12.2-rc1 on 2026-10-15
Security response	2	Vulnerability reports go to SUSE; 1.13 gives the CSI service account cluster-wide read on Secrets by default; no public advisory process read

Technical lock-in: 11.0 / 25 (lower is better)

Criterion	Score	Basis
Formats	1.5	Replica directories managed by Longhorn; VM images enter as qcow2 or raw through CDI
Export path	2	Backups to S3 or NFSv4; Harvester 1.8.0 moves VM disks to external CSI storage without downtime
Stack coupling	3.5	Requires Kubernetes 1.34 or later for 1.13 and a KubeVirt platform for VMs; no classic hypervisor
Hardware / cloud coupling	1	x86_64 or ARM64; Harvester recommends YES-certified hardware; ARM64 V2 has a known NVMe stuck IO
Skills and tooling coupling	3	Kubernetes, Rancher and KubeVirt skills; longhornctl

Integrator fit: 12.0 / 20

Criterion	Score	Basis
Partner programme openness	3	Open-source download; SUSE channel terms not read
Multi-tenancy and self-service	3	Namespaces, Kubernetes quotas and Rancher RBAC; Harvester enforces roles in the backend since 1.8
API and infrastructure-as-code	3.5	CRDs, Helm and longhornctl; a Harvester Terraform provider was not verified
Skills and certification	2.5	SUSE and Rancher training exists; Longhorn-specific certification not found

AI leverage: 2.0 / 20

How the product uses AI, scored per year like capability. Only GA counts.

Criterion	2019	2022	Today	Latest step
AI workload infrastructure	n/a	0	0	2020: None
AI platform stack	n/a	0	0	2020: None
AI-assisted operations	n/a	0	0	2020: None
Agent openness	n/a	2	2	2020: Kubernetes CRDs and the Longhorn API; no MCP server

Year by year: 2020: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2022: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2026: 2

AI say-do, 2023 to 2026: 0 AI items announced; 0 GA, 0 still preview, 0 pending, 0 dropped. No AI item has been announced for Longhorn; the vGPU and MIG features SUSE lists belong to SUSE Virtualization.

Longhorn has announced no AI feature. Agents can drive it through its CRDs like any Kubernetes resource, and the GPU features SUSE markets sit in SUSE Virtualization, not in the storage.

Reading

Longhorn scores as a solid Kubernetes volume manager that became VM storage because SUSE built a hypervisor on it. The data services and scale lines stay low because it has no compression, deduplication, QoS or two-node mode, and the performance line is held back half a step because the V2 engine that is GA upstream since 1.12.0 ships as a Technical Preview in Harvester 1.9.0. Resilience and operations have improved most since 2025, with multi-replica rebuilds, topology-aware placement and V2 live upgrades. The one thing a buyer should check is which Longhorn version their Harvester release pins and whether that release is a Prime or Stable version SUSE supports in production. Sustainability risk is modest because the CNCF owns the project, but the people who ship it work for SUSE.

Open questions and items to re-score

Whether the V2 data engine counts as GA for VM use: GA upstream since 1.12.0 (2026-06-02), Technical Preview in Harvester 1.9.0 and 'in preview' on the SUSE Storage page.
Harvester 1.0.0 is dated 21 December on GitHub without a year; 2021 is inferred from the bundled Longhorn 1.2.3. Harvester 1.1 to 1.5 and Longhorn 1.0 to 1.5 were not read.
The SUSE lifecycle page has inconsistent dates (SUSE Storage 1.12.1 GA listed 2 Jun 2026 while GitHub shows 2026-08-14).
Whether OpenShift Virtualization or Spectro Cloud VMO support Longhorn for VMs was not checked.
Harvester 1.9.1 with the permanent fix for VM shutdown on upgrade was still a release candidate on 2026-10-08.
SUSE Storage and SUSE Virtualization prices and partner terms were not found.