Portainer 3.0 drops Community Edition: Kubernetes-first and paid free tier

On 11 September 2026 Portainer announced that 2.45 LTS is the last release in the 2.x line, and 3.0 will ship as a Kubernetes-first STS release with no separate Community Edition build. Docker, Swarm and Podman still work in 3.x but are labelled "secondarily ordered" and won't get new capabilities in the policy engine, GitOps engine or observability layer. Free access continues via the 3 Nodes Free program, i.e. a Portainer Business licence rather than a community-maintained build.

• Portainer 2.45 LTS is the last 2.x release; 2.45.1 LTS shipped 17 September 2026
• Portainer 3.0 is a Kubernetes-first STS release with no separate Community Edition
• Docker, Swarm and Podman are "secondarily ordered" in 3.x and get no new features
• Free access continues via 3 Nodes Free, a Portainer Business licence