A technology radar is an opinionated guide to a set of emerging technologies. The CNCF End User Technology Radar is intended for a technical audience who want to understand what solutions end users use in cloud native, and which they recommend.

The key idea is to place solutions at one of three levels:

Adopt

The CNCF End User Community can clearly recommend this technology. We have used it for long periods of time in many teams, and it has proven to be stable and useful.

Trial

The CNCF End User Community has used it with success, and we recommend you have a closer look at the technology.

Assess

The CNCF End User Community has tried it out, and we find it promising. We recommend having a look at these items when you face a specific need for the technology in your project.

The popular format originated at Thoughtworks and has been adopted by dozens of companies including Zalando, AOE, Porsche, Spotify, and Intuit.

For each CNCF End User Technology Radar, 3-5 companies are randomly chosen from the CNCF End User Community and asked to form an editorial Radar Team. Once the Radar Team chooses a topic, the 140 companies in the CNCF End User Community are asked to describe what their companies recommend for a list of different technology solutions: Hold, Assess, Trial, or Adopt. They can also give more detailed comments. As the answers are submitted via a Google Spreadsheet, they are neither private nor anonymized within the group.

The Radar Team curate the responses, choose final outcomes, and describe any patterns or themes they see in the data or from their own experience.

What is CNCF?

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation is part of the Linux Foundation and home of Kubernetes, Prometheus, Helm and many more.

What is the CNCF End User Community?

The CNCF End User Community is a group of top companies and startups that are early adopters of modern infrastructure and cloud native technologies and practices.

Who is the CNCF End User Technology Radar for?

The CNCF End User Technology Radar is intended for a technical audience who want to understand what solutions end users use in cloud native, and which they recommend. You can use the CNCF End User Technology Radar to prioritize which technologies to evaluate in your environment.

The CNCF Technical Oversight Committee (TOC) also uses it as extra information to assess projects that are interested in being part of CNCF.

Does the Technology Radar predict the future of cloud native?

The Radar is not meant to predict the future; it is a report of how cloud native is used at one specific point in time.

What's the difference between the CNCF End User Technology Radar and other technology radars?

Compared to the ThoughtWorks radar, the CNCF End User Technology Radar is community-driven and represents the experience across dozens of companies.

To capture the fast-changing pace of cloud native, the CNCF End User Technology Radar covers ~20 solutions on one topic each quarter, instead of surveying 100+ solutions annually.

The format is also simplified to remove the Hold ring and quadrants, which are used for organization.

Why is there no “Hold” ring in the CNCF End User Technology Radar?

On a typical Tech Radar, the "Hold" ring is a recommendation to stop using a technology. This recommendation may be reasonable within one organization, but didn't seem appropriate to use it as a community. Not including this ring also simplifies the Radar, so that the meaning of each ring is consistent.

Who chooses the topic of a Radar?

Three to five representatives are randomly chosen from the CNCF End User Community to form a Radar Team. The team chooses the topic based on suggestions from the community and their own interests and expertise.

How are the technologies chosen?

The Radar Team creates a list of candidate technologies, but End User Community members who respond to the survey can also add other technologies.

Is the Tech Radar always about tools, or will it also cover other things such as approaches?

It’s designed to be flexible, so future Radar Teams may decide to survey the End User Community about things other than tools.

How do I get my project on the Technology Radar?

In order to get a project represented on a Technology Radar, vendors and project maintainers can tell their end users about the Technology Radar and encourage them to join the End User Community so they can participate in the survey and share their experiences with the project.

How do I participate in the next Technology Radar?

If you'd like to weigh in on the next Technology Radar survey or lead a Radar Team, join the End User Community.

How do I join the next Radar Team?

If you'd like to help create a future Technology Radar, make sure you're a member of the End User Community, and either volunteer or be randomly selected. Email us at info@cncf.io if you'd like to volunteer.

Who drives the poll?

CNCF runs the End User Technology Radar program, but each Radar is community-driven, with Radar Teams selected randomly from the End User Community.

Can I create my own technology radar?

Feel free to fork this repo and run your own technology radar!

Whom do I contact with questions?

If you have any other questions not answered here, please email us at info@cncf.io.