The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) has voted to accept OpenYurt as an incubating project. OpenYurt joins a growing ecosystem of technologies tackling real-world challenges at the edge of cloud-native infrastructure.
What is OpenYurt?
OpenYurt is a Kubernetes-native platform purpose-built for cloud-edge orchestration. Originally open-sourced by Alibaba Cloud in May 2020, OpenYurt enables developers and operators to manage edge applications with the same consistency and experience as cloud-based deployments. It addresses common challenges including:
- Disconnected or unreliable cloud-edge networking
- Edge autonomy
- Region-aware deployment
- Edge device management
Most importantly, OpenYurt retains full compatibility with Kubernetes APIs, is vendor agnostic, and emphasizes simplicity and usability.
Key Milestones and Ecosystem Growth
Since joining the CNCF Sandbox in September 2020, OpenYurt has steadily matured:
- The number of maintainers has expanded from 3 to 9, representing organizations like Microsoft, Alibaba, VMware, Intel, Inspur, Sangfor, Tongji University, and independent contributors.
- A growing ADOPTERS.md file highlights real-world use in production and development.
- Significant features have been added, including:
- Device Management
- Multi-region Resource and Workload Management
- Node Pool Traffic Closure
- Cross-region Communication
- Traffic Replication at the Node/Pool level
- Enhancements to node autonomy, deployment tooling, community documentation, and user interface have made the platform more accessible and production-ready.
Integrations Across the Cloud Native Landscape
OpenYurt connects seamlessly with many CNCF projects, including:
- Kubernetes – the foundation of OpenYurt’s orchestration model
- Helm – for deploying cloud controllers
- WasmEdge – enabling lightweight workloads via WebAssembly
- KinD – for local testing and GitHub Actions integration
- Prometheus – for metrics collection and observability
Technical Components
OpenYurt’s architecture includes several key modules:
- Yurt-Manager: A set of controllers and webhooks that bring cloud-edge coordination to Kubernetes, including workload updates and multi-region management.
- YurtHub: A sidecar on edge nodes that ensures autonomy and efficient communication, even in disconnected scenarios.
- Raven: A project that enables cross-region networking and pod-to-pod communication in distributed environments.
- Yurt-IoT-Dock: An integration layer with IoT platforms like EdgeX Foundry to support declarative device management.
Community Highlights
- 1.8k GitHub Stars
- 170 contributors across organizations and geographies
- 1581 pull requests and 785 issues closed
- 33 releases, including the stable v1.0 in September 2022
Maintainer Perspective
“It has evolved into a Cloud-to-Edge framework with beautiful architecture to facilitate efficient application construction, deployment, and scaling. We’ve seen adoption from startups to major carriers and formed a vibrant, fast-moving community. I’m excited to see OpenYurt grow as a foundation for the next wave of AI-powered cloud-edge applications.”
— Shaoqiang Chen, Maintainer, OpenYurt
From the TOC
“OpenYurt fits well in the cloud native landscape, adding critical capabilities in edge environments like IoT and industrial automation. Its approach of extending—rather than replacing—Kubernetes makes it accessible and practical for real-world deployment. I’m excited to support its continued growth.”
— CNCF TOC Sponsor
Looking Ahead
OpenYurt’s roadmap for 2025 includes:
- Support for Kubernetes v1.32
- Network diagnostics and request multiplexing across node pools
- Merging the Raven networking layer into the core repository
- Support for EdgeX v4.0 and scalable on-prem Kubernetes deployment
As a CNCF incubating project, OpenYurt now joins technologies like OpenTelemetry, KubeVirt, Knative, Kyverno, cert-manager, and many others solving critical challenges across cloud native infrastructure.
We look forward to seeing how OpenYurt continues to evolve the edge computing landscape with the backing of the CNCF community.
Learn more: https://www.cncf.io/projects/openyurt