Ingress NGINX Retires March 2026: Avoid Production Outages and Migration Chaos

tldr

• Ingress NGINX maintenance ends March 2026. After this deadline, no new releases, no bugfixes, and no compatibility updates for newer Kubernetes versions.
• The biggest reliability risks:
  
  • Production failures from unpatched bugs 
  • Integration breakage with cert-manager, external-dns, and other ecosystem tools
  • Compatibility issues with newer Kubernetes versions (1.32+) that won't be tested
  • Emergency migrations under pressure instead of planned transitions
• We're highlighting key reliability insights to help you identify Ingress NGINX usage and plan migrations before March 2026.

Why Ingress NGINX Matters

For nearly a decade, Ingress NGINX has been the backbone of Kubernetes networking. Developed alongside Kubernetes itself, it became the standard for routing external traffic into clusters. Its flexibility, comprehensive features, and cloud-provider independence made it the default choice from startups to enterprises.

Ingress NGINX powered billions of requests worldwide. Platform teams standardized on it, managed Kubernetes offerings bundled it by default, and countless production systems depend on it today. If you've deployed a Kubernetes app with public HTTP/HTTPS access, you've likely used Ingress NGINX.

What's Changing

The Kubernetes SIG Network and Security Response Committee announced Ingress NGINX retirement due to unsolvable maintenance challenges.

Maintenance ends March 2026

• Best-effort maintenance until March 2026. After this, the project moves to kubernetes-retired and becomes read-only.
• No more releases. No bugfixes, no feature updates, no compatibility patches.
• Repositories freeze. GitHub repos become read-only archives.
• Your controllers keep running but with zero ongoing support as the ecosystem moves forward.

Why retirement happened

• Insufficient maintainers. For years, only 1-2 people worked on this in their spare time.
• Failed succession plan. Plans to develop InGate (a replacement) never gained traction. InGate is also being retired.
• Technical debt. Features that were once helpful became maintenance nightmares and compatibility roadblocks.

What this means operationally

After March 2026, Ingress NGINX becomes abandonware in production:

• Bugs discovered in the controller won't be fixed
• Kubernetes API changes won't be accommodated
• Integration updates with cert-manager, external-dns, observability tools won't happen
• Community support dries up as everyone migrates away

Who's Affected

If any of these apply, you need to act:

• Ingress resources with ingressClassName: nginx or kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx annotations
• Helm charts that depend on ingress-nginx
• Infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, Pulumi) managing nginx ingress
• CI/CD pipelines deploying or testing with Ingress NGINX
• Platform documentation standardizing on nginx ingress

‍

It's increasingly impossible to keep up with all the ecosystem changes affecting your stack. Use automated reliability monitoring to watch for Ingress NGINX retirement and 1000s of other reliability risks.‍

Need help? Try Prequel and stay ahead of ecosystem changes like Ingress NGINX retirement.

What Will the Impact Be?

Operational failures

• Kubernetes API deprecation breakage. As K8s evolves (1.32, 1.33+), untested compatibility issues will emerge.
• Silent failures. Existing deployments work until the next K8s upgrade, then break unexpectedly.
• Integration drift. cert-manager, external-dns, and monitoring tools update for newer controllers—not frozen ones.
• Debugging nightmares. Issues in deprecated software with shrinking community knowledge.

Business disruption

• Production incidents from bugs that will never be patched.
• Emergency weekend migrations when something breaks instead of planned transitions.
• Engineering time spent maintaining legacy infrastructure instead of building features.
• Technical debt compounding as the gap between your stack and maintained alternatives grows.

Real-world parallel: The Bitnami lesson

When Bitnami deprecated public container images, teams faced:

• ImagePullBackOff during node rotations and autoscaling
• Broken CI pipelines pulling images that disappeared
• Stale dependencies causing chart upgrade failures
• Weekend fire-drills for teams who delayed

Organizations using automated detection (like Prequel's CREs) identified risks early and migrated on their own timeline—not in crisis mode.

‍

Doing a Manual Impact Assessment

1. Find all nginx ingress resources

# List all ingresses using nginx controller
kubectl get ingress -A -o json | \
  jq -r '.items[] | select(.spec.ingressClassName=="nginx" or 
  (.metadata.annotations // {})["kubernetes.io/ingress.class"]=="nginx") | 
  "\(.metadata.namespace)/\(.metadata.name)"'

2. Inventory infrastructure code

# Search your repos for nginx ingress references
grep -r "ingress-nginx" terraform/ helm/ manifests/ k8s/
grep -r "ingressClassName.*nginx" .

3. Check Helm dependencies

# Find charts depending on ingress-nginx
find . -name "Chart.yaml" -exec grep -l "ingress-nginx" {} \;

4. Audit CI/CD pipelines

• Review ArgoCD/Flux applications deploying ingress-nginx
• Check pipeline YAML for nginx ingress deployments
• Scan platform documentation referencing nginx ingress

Key Reliability Issues to Identify

Here are the critical reliability issues you need to surface in your clusters before March 2026:

1. Running Ingress NGINX Controllers

The problem: You're running controllers that will receive no updates after March 2026.

How to find it:

kubectl get pods -A --selector app.kubernetes.io/name=ingress-nginx

Why it matters: Every cluster running Ingress NGINX needs a migration plan. Prioritize production clusters first.

2. Ingress Resources Using Nginx Controller

The problem: Ingress resources configured with ingressClassName: nginx or kubernetes.io/ingress.class: nginx annotations.

How to find it:

kubectl get ingress -A -o json | \  jq -r '.items[] | select(.spec.ingressClassName=="nginx" or   (.metadata.annotations // {})["kubernetes.io/ingress.class"]=="nginx") |   "\(.metadata.namespace)/\(.metadata.name)"'

Why it matters: Shows the scope of your migration—every ingress found needs to be migrated to a new controller.

3. Nginx-Specific Annotations That Won't Translate

The problem: Ingress resources using nginx-specific annotations like:

• nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/configuration-snippet
• nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/auth-url
• nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/rewrite-target
• nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/server-snippet

How to find it:

kubectl get ingress -A -o json | \  jq -r '.items[] | select(.metadata.annotations |   keys[] | startswith("nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io")) |   "\(.metadata.namespace)/\(.metadata.name)"'

Why it matters: These annotations require refactoring—they won't work on alternative controllers. Complex configurations need thorough testing.

4. Missing Gateway API CRDs (Optional Migration Path)

The problem: Clusters without Gateway API CRDs can't migrate to the recommended modern replacement.

How to find it:

kubectl get crd gateways.gateway.networking.k8s.io

Why it matters: If you're planning to migrate to Gateway API, you need CRDs installed first. Without them, you're limited to other Ingress controllers.

These checks help you understand your exposure and plan migrations across dev, staging, and prod environments.

Automated Assessment: New CREs to Help

We're publishing a focused set of Common Reliability Enumerations (CREs) to help you surface issues:

• PREQUEL-2025-0301 (Pulling Ingress NGINX Controller Images) - Detects workloads pulling Ingress NGINX controller images scheduled for retirement in March 2026.
• PREQUEL-2025-0302 (Ingress NGINX Controller Image Pull Failures) - Detects image pull failures and registry issues with Ingress NGINX controller images.
• PREQUEL-2025-0303 (Ingress NGINX Controllers Running Post-Retirement) - Detects clusters running Ingress NGINX controllers after the March 2026 end-of-support deadline.

These CREs are cluster- and pipeline-friendly: run them in dev, staging, and prod to address issues and ensure regressions don't occur.

Pragmatic Migration Options

Once you understand your exposure (automated or manual), here's how to migrate:

Option 1: Migrate to Gateway API (Recommended)

Gateway API is Kubernetes' official Ingress successor with GA status since October 2023.

Why Gateway API:

• Official replacement from Kubernetes SIG Network
• Better architecture with role separation (GatewayClass, Gateway, HTTPRoute)
• Enhanced features without annotation hacks—header matching, traffic splitting, cross-namespace routing
• Growing ecosystem support from Envoy Gateway, Istio, Traefik, Cilium, Kong, NGINX Gateway Fabric

Migration approach:

• Install Gateway API CRDs in your cluster
• Choose a Gateway implementation (see options below)
• Use ingress2gateway CLI tool to convert Ingress → HTTPRoute
• Test conversions in dev/staging before prod cutover

Option 2: Alternative Ingress Controllers

If you're staying with Ingress API, these controllers offer strong support:

Traefik

• Best for: Dynamic environments, automatic service discovery
• Migration: Often just changing ingressClassName: traefik
• Strengths: Cloud-native, excellent observability, active maintenance

HAProxy Ingress Controller

• Best for: High-performance needs, advanced load balancing
• Migration: Straightforward annotation mapping, documented guides
• Strengths: Superior throughput, zero-downtime reloads

Envoy-Based (Contour, Envoy Gateway)

• Best for: Service mesh integration, modern observability
• Migration: Contour HTTPProxy or Gateway API path
• Strengths: Modern xDS protocol, active CNCF community

Cloud-Provider Controllers

• AWS ALB, GCE Ingress, Azure App Gateway
• Best for: Cloud-native deployments already on these platforms
• Migration: Cloud-specific but it well-documented paths
• Strengths: Tight platform integration, managed infrastructure

Migration Best Practices

1. Inventory and prioritize

• Start with dev/test environments
• Progress to non-critical production workloads
• Tackle high-traffic production last

2. Run controllers in parallel

• Deploy new controller alongside ingress-nginx
• Gradually migrate Ingress resources using ingressClassName
• Validate each migration before proceeding

3. Test thoroughly in staging

• Verify SSL/TLS termination works
• Test custom annotations and configurations
• Validate monitoring/logging still functions
• Confirm rate limiting and auth behaviors

4. Document and train

• Update platform documentation with new controller
• Create runbooks for common operations
• Train teams on new annotation syntax
• Share migration learnings across teams

5. Automate prevention

• Add CI checks failing on ingressClassName: nginx after cutoff
• Use Prequel's automated checks to catch regressions
• Set up alerts for deprecated resource creation

6. Monitor the cutover

• Watch for 4xx/5xx spikes during migration
• Track latency changes
• Verify certificate renewals work
• Monitor resource consumption changes

Recommended Timeline

• Q4 2025: Complete assessment, choose replacement, pilot in dev
• Q1 2026: Deploy to staging and low-risk production
• Q2 2026: Migrate critical production before March 2026 deadline
• Q3 2026: Decommission old controllers, validate complete cutover

The Cost of Waiting

Short-term risks:

• Bugs in production with no resolution path
• Emergency migrations under incident pressure
• Team context-switching during critical periods

Medium-term consequences:

• Kubernetes version upgrade blockers
• Integration breakage with ecosystem tools
• Growing technical debt as alternatives evolve

Long-term impact:

• Production incidents from abandoned software
• Compounding compatibility issues
• Opportunity cost maintaining dead-end technology

The math is simple: Planned migration costs days to weeks. Emergency responses risk incident fallout.

Wrap-Up

The Ingress NGINX retirement marks the end of a Kubernetes era. This isn't just another deprecation—it's a hard deadline affecting approximately half of all Kubernetes deployments.

Key takeaways:

1. March 2026 is final. After this, you're running unmaintained software.
   
2. Operational failures will accumulate. Bugs won't be fixed, compatibility won't be maintained.
   
3. Migration takes time. Start now to avoid crisis mode later.
   
4. Better alternatives exist. Gateway API and modern controllers offer improved reliability and features.
   
5. Automation saves time. Use tools like Prequel to identify risks and track migration progress.
   

Additional Resources

• Kubernetes Official Retirement Announcement
• Gateway API Migration Guide
• Ingress Controller Alternatives
• Prequel Documentation

Wrap-up

Ecosystem shifts like this can break prod today, or break on your next upgrade. It is increasingly impossible to keep up with all the risks that affect your stack. Use CREs to keep watch for these and 1000s of other daily risks. If you need help, try Prequel and stay ahead of breaking ecosystem changes.

If you see results, it's time to plan your migration.

‍