Announcing Kargo version 1.0: Now Generally Available on the Akuity Platform!

We are thrilled to announce that Kargo has officially reached version 1.0, and is now generally available on the Akuity Platform. Kargo is a GitOps continuous promotion tool for Kubernetes that integrates seamlessly with Argo CD, empowering developers to promote their applications  to multiple environments faster, safer, and more efficiently. With this major milestone release, Kargo has achieved a level of maturity and stability that enables teams to confidently adopt it as part of their production deployment workflows.

Why Kargo is a Game-Changer

Kargo brings a range of features that are essential for modern Kubernetes environments. Here are some key benefits that teams can expect:

• Flexible promotion pipeline: At its core, Kargo provides a pipeline that allows you to express your environments and deployment process in a powerful way. Kargo enables you to promote your applications effortlessly across multiple environments, ensuring a smooth transition from development to production. Teams using Kargo can create customized pipelines to fit their specific needs while maintaining flexibility at every stage.

• Environment and change visibility: With Kargo, developers can easily visualize the state of their applications across all environments. This visibility into the promotion process reduces friction and errors, offering a more transparent and informed deployment strategy for both developers and leaders.

• Intuitive user experience: One of Kargo’s main goals is to simplify the deployment experience. Its intuitive user interface abstracts the complexities of GitOps and configuration management, easing the process. Developers can focus on deploying high-quality applications without getting bogged down in operational details.

• Safer deployments with guardrails: Kargo incorporates processes and guardrails to ensure that every deployment is as safe as possible. Automated checks, verifications, and testing between stages help minimize the risks of manual errors and reduce downtime.

General Availability on the Akuity Platform

In addition to Kargo reaching v1.0 maturity, we are excited to announce that Kargo is also generally available as a managed offering on the Akuity Platform. Kargo on the Akuity Platform offers numerous benefits to enhance the open source experience, including:

• Fully managed and hosted Kargo: Using the  Akuity Platform, you can avoid the need to dedicate and operate an entire Kubernetes cluster to running your Kargo instance. Reduce your operational burden and the cost of running a dedicated control plane.

• Agent-based architecture: Our unique agent-based architecture supports running Kargo components on workload clusters behind firewalls, enabling in-cluster, pre-production testing, and access to privately accessible git providers, or metric providers such as Prometheus.

• Seamless integration with Argo CD: Whether you are already on our platform with our managed Argo CD offering or you run Argo CD in dozens of clusters yourself, enjoy a streamlined, integrated experience with minimal additional setup.

• Long-term persistence: Improve audibility, security, and accountability by retaining critical deployment data long-term.

• DORA metrics: Provide insights into deployment performance, helping teams monitor, improve, and optimize their development processes.

Using Kargo as part of theAkuity Platform means no extra setup, no additional complexity—just streamlined GitOps-driven continuous promotion for your Kubernetes environments. Whether you're running a small team or managing large-scale production clusters, Akuity and Kargo together ensure you have everything you need for efficient and secure deployments.

Looking Ahead: The Future of Kargo

While Kargo has reached a significant milestone with v1.0, we’re just getting started. The future roadmap for Kargo focuses on extensibility and broadening its scope beyond Kubernetes. Here’s a preview of what’s coming:

• Support for Non-Kubernetes Deployments: Kubernetes isn’t the only infrastructure that needs robust promotion pipelines. We’re actively working on making Kargo more versatile, allowing it to handle non-Kubernetes deployments with the same ease.

• Integration with Terraform/OpenTofu and more: We recognize that teams use a variety of tools and languages for infrastructure management. Kargo will soon integrate with Terraform, OpenTofu, and other popular deployment tools, giving users a more holistic approach to managing infrastructure-as-code workflows.

• Arbitrary Configuration Language Support: We understand that infrastructure management is diverse and dynamic. The future versions of Kargo will offer support for arbitrary configuration languages, giving teams even more flexibility in how they manage deployments and environments.

Join Us on This Journey

The release of Kargo v1.0 is a significant milestone, but we’re excited about what’s next. As we continue to build out Kargo’s capabilities, your feedback will be essential. Whether you’re already using Kargo in production or just getting started, we invite you to explore the Akuity Platform and take advantage of this cutting-edge tool.

With Kargo, deploying to Kubernetes has never been easier, safer, or more efficient. Get started today on the Akuity Platform and join us as we continue to push the boundaries of GitOps and continuous promotion.

Ready to Promote with Kargo v1.0?

We hosted a webinar on Thursday, October 24 exploring Kargo 1.0 - with Jesse Suen of Akuity, Kelsey Hightower, former distinguished engineer at Google, along with current Kargo users: Ed Boykin from CoreCard, Jose Maldonado from Cisco, and Brad Wannow from Bloom Credit. Check out the recording here.

You can also learn more about Kargo via docs, or if you have further questions, contact Akuity for a free demo.