OKD

Judgement

What it is

Complete system

What it does

The community distribution of Kubernetes that Red Hat OpenShift is built from, with built-in builds, routing, a web console and automatic cluster upgrades.

Adopt it when

You want OpenShift's developer and operations features without a Red Hat subscription and can support it yourself.

Watch out

Community releases have lagged OpenShift at times, the install needs substantial hardware, and there is no vendor support.

Ready for

Usable

Runs as

Self-hosted server

Built with

Kubernetes, CentOS Stream CoreOS and Go

How established

Established: started 7 years ago, latest release 5.0.0-okd-scos.5.

What the license allows

You can build it into a product you sell, as long as you keep its copyright notice.

Judged on 2026-11-06 from the project's README and GitHub data. The license and age lines are worked out directly.

Compare OKD

Built from

Follow it down: OKD → CPython → GCC → LLVM project → runs on a microchip

How compilers were built, back to punched paper tape

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