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With Ingress NGINX retired, the company behind HAProxy takes a seat on CNCF's Governing Board

HAProxy is now a CNCF Platinum member with a Governing Board seat, a say in Kubernetes networking as teams move off the retired Ingress NGINX.

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HAProxy Technologies, the company behind the open source HAProxy load balancer and a Kubernetes ingress controller, is now a CNCF Platinum member with a seat on the foundation's Governing Board. It announced the upgrade on November 10, 2026, at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America in Salt Lake City, as Kubernetes teams replace the retired Ingress NGINX controller.

Key points

  • HAProxy Technologies says it has moved up to Platinum membership of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), the Linux Foundation body that hosts Kubernetes.
  • According to the company, Platinum places it on the CNCF Governing Board and widens its part in setting the foundation's technical direction.
  • CNCF executive director Jonathan Bryce credited the company's work on Kubernetes networking, Ingress, Gateway API and control plane and data plane tooling.
  • The company maintains the HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller, HAProxy Unified Gateway and the HAProxy Data Plane API alongside its load balancer, which has been open source since 2001.
  • HAProxy Technologies is a Diamond sponsor of KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026, running November 10 to 12 in Salt Lake City.

Why does HAProxy's CNCF Platinum membership matter to Kubernetes teams?

It gives one of the companies that build Kubernetes traffic tooling a vote at the foundation's top table, in the year Kubernetes teams lost an ingress controller that much of the ecosystem ran on. The Kubernetes Steering and Security Response Committees described Ingress NGINX as critical infrastructure for about half of cloud native environments in January 2026, ahead of its retirement in March 2026, after which it gets no bug fixes or security patches. Kubernetes SIG Network pointed users to Gateway API, the modern replacement for Ingress, or to another Ingress controller.

The stakes are wide: in CNCF's annual survey, 82% of container users run Kubernetes in production, and every one of those clusters needs something to route traffic into it.

Platinum is CNCF's top membership tier. The foundation's membership page lists a Governing Board seat and a five-minute KubeCon keynote among its benefits, at $350,000 plus Linux Foundation membership with a minimum three-year commitment.

"HAProxy's upgrade to Platinum membership reflects how central application delivery and security have become to the cloud native stack."

— Jonathan Bryce, Executive Director, CNCF

Which HAProxy projects run inside Kubernetes clusters?

Three open source projects, besides the load balancer itself: the HAProxy Kubernetes Ingress Controller, HAProxy Unified Gateway and the HAProxy Data Plane API, according to the company. HAProxy Technologies also sells HAProxy One, an enterprise platform built on the same core.

The company says HAProxy One handles external load balancing, routing across clusters and delivery straight to pods, and manages Ingress and Gateway API resources inside a cluster. It covers traffic at Layer 4 and Layer 7, with DDoS protection, rate limiting, bot management and a web application firewall built in, all run from a control plane named HAProxy Fusion.

"HAProxy has been open source since 2001, and that provides the peer-reviewed, battle-tested core of our enterprise platform, HAProxy One."

— Tim Bertrand, President, HAProxy Technologies

What should platform engineers take from the move?

Our analysis: for teams still choosing what replaces Ingress NGINX, or planning a move to Gateway API, who maintains an option is now part of the choice, not only what it does. HAProxy Technologies says it will use the board seat to deepen collaboration with other contributors and to improve the performance, reliability and security of Kubernetes networking, the same ground Bryce credits it with. According to the company, its booth #124 at KubeCon, which runs November 10 to 12, has live demos of multi-cluster routing, Kubernetes ingress and AI traffic management. For the wider trade-offs, practitioners on this site have answered how they solve network reliability issues and which single infrastructure change most improves performance.

The company lists two sessions on the program. In a keynote titled "Sovereign AI Starts at the Traffic Layer", VP of Architecture Andjelko Iharos shows how teams can keep AI inference inside their own cluster using the load balancer and ingress controller they already run. In the demo theatre, Jakub Suchy and Helene Durand present a single connectivity model covering Ingress, Gateway API and routing across clouds.

Frequently asked questions

When did HAProxy Technologies become a CNCF Platinum member?

The company announced the upgrade on November 10, 2026, during KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America 2026 in Salt Lake City.

What does a CNCF Platinum membership cost?

CNCF's membership page lists Platinum at $350,000 plus Linux Foundation membership, with a minimum three-year commitment.

Is HAProxy open source?

Yes. The HAProxy load balancer has been open source since 2001, and HAProxy Technologies says that core is what its commercial HAProxy One platform is built on.

Where is HAProxy Technologies based?

According to the company, it is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts, with offices across the United States and Europe.

Who speaks for HAProxy at KubeCon North America 2026?

Andjelko Iharos, VP of Architecture, gives the keynote, and Jakub Suchy, Director of Solutions Engineering, presents in the demo theatre with software engineer Helene Durand.

Sources

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