Kube-OVN Joins CNCF Sandbox: Advancing Cloud‑Native Container Networking

Yesterday, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) announced that Kube-OVN, an open‑source container network project from Lingque Cloud, has officially entered the CNCF Sandbox for hosting. This is the first open‑source CNI network project to be accepted by CNCF worldwide and the first Chinese container company to contribute an independently designed project to the CNCF.

Kube-OVN is an enterprise‑grade, cloud‑native Kubernetes container networking orchestration system developed by Lingque Cloud. Built on SDN virtualization technology, it brings flexible and easy‑to‑use networking to containers. By porting mature networking functions from the OpenStack ecosystem to Kubernetes, Kube-OVN integrates security hardening, intelligent operations, hardware acceleration, and other features, greatly enhancing the security, operability, manageability, and performance of Kubernetes networking. Its simplicity of installation, low maintenance difficulty, and stable output have made it one of the most popular open‑source Kubernetes networking solutions, earning recognition such as the “Excellent Open‑Source Project” award from the China Open‑Source Cloud Alliance.

Since its open‑source launch in mid‑2019, Kube-OVN has gathered over 700 stars on GitHub, with 24 contributors from companies including Lingque Cloud, China Telecom, Intel, Huawei, and Ruijie Networks. More than 50 enterprise users—including China Unicom, China Telecom, Huawei, China Electronics, ByteDance, and Japan’s Rakuten—have adopted it, and within two years the project has been deployed in thousands of clusters for large‑scale enterprise and overseas projects, as well as initial commercial trials.

The entry into the CNCF Sandbox will further accelerate the development and maturation of the core Kubernetes runtime environment. Kube-OVN will provide capabilities for cross‑cloud network management, interconnection of traditional network architectures and infrastructure, and edge‑cluster deployments, while removing performance and security monitoring bottlenecks in Kubernetes networking, offering a mature network foundation that improves the stability and usability of the Kubernetes ecosystem.

Benefiting from CNCF’s neutral open‑source environment, Kube-OVN is poised to enter a “fast lane” of feature development and practical adoption. The project plans to strengthen community operations, launch a series of community activities, and collaborate with more developers and users to solve real‑world demands with code, making Kubernetes networking more usable and unlocking the value of the open‑source community.

As the initiator of the Kube-OVN open‑source project, Lingque Cloud will continue to uphold an open‑source, open‑door philosophy, actively participate in domestic and international open‑source ecosystems, and help maintain a neutral open‑source project that collaborates with cloud platforms, cloud‑native infrastructure, and downstream partners to propel Kube-OVN to greater heights.

Kube-OVN Community Contact Information:

Kube-OVN community website: http://www.kube-ovn.io

GitHub: https://github.com/alauda/kube-ovn

Join the community and become a contributor or user by adding the WeChat ID fudan3070 (note “Kube-OVN” when joining).

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