Free report·
CNCF Technology Radar Q1 2026
Workflow Orchestration, App Delivery, and Security & Policy Management
The most common approach to internal platforms among respondents was having multiple teams collaboratively handle platform capabilities (41%).
The CNCF Technology Radar Q1 2026 reports how more than 400 professional developers working with cloud native technologies rate platform engineering tools across three domains: workflow automation, application delivery, and security and compliance management. The technologies shown to developers were selected by CNCF and CNCF's End User Community for relevance and importance. Developers rated the tools they were familiar with on usefulness and maturity, and indicated how likely they were to recommend each one, with recommendations converted into a net promoter score for the analysis. Based on these ratings, each technology was placed into one of three groups — adopt, trial, or assess. The report sets out the tools positioned in each group across all three radars and discusses the maturity, usefulness and recommendation ratings behind those positions. It also examines how organisations structure their developer platforms and how they integrate AI workflows into those platforms.
Key findings
- Helm, Backstage, and kro are the three technologies placed in the 'adopt' position of the application delivery technology radar.
- The most common approach to internal platforms among respondents was having multiple teams collaboratively handle platform capabilities (41%).
- For workflow automation technologies, GitHub Actions, Armada, Buildpacks, Jenkins, and ArgoCD were placed in the 'adopt' position.
- When managing AI workflows, most organizations are using a hybrid platform approach (35%).
- Keycloak, Open Policy Agent (OPA) and cert-manager are the three technologies placed in the 'adopt' position of the security and compliance management technology radar.
- Organizations with a dedicated internal platform development team were the most likely to be extending their current platform to handle AI workflows over a hybrid approach or a dedicated separate AI workflow platform.
Questions this report answers
Which workflow automation technologies are in the 'adopt' position?
GitHub Actions, Armada, Buildpacks, Jenkins, and ArgoCD were placed in the 'adopt' position of the workflow automation technology radar, while Karmada, Tekton, Jenkins X, and werf ended up in the 'trial' position.
Which application delivery technologies are rated 'adopt'?
Helm, Backstage, and kro are the three technologies placed in the 'adopt' position of the application delivery technology radar.
Which security and compliance management technologies are in the 'adopt' position?
Keycloak, Open Policy Agent (OPA) and cert-manager are the three technologies placed in the 'adopt' position of the security and compliance management technology radar.
How do organisations structure their internal developer platforms?
The most common approach, reported by 41% of developers, is having multiple teams (DevOps, SRE, infrastructure) collaboratively provide platform capabilities, while 28% report that a platform team handles internal platforms.
How are organisations handling AI workflows within their platforms?
A hybrid approach is the most commonly reported, adopted by 35% of developers managing AI workflows, while only 19% reported having a separate, dedicated platform for AI workflows.
Which security technology received the highest proportion of recommendations?
Bank-Vaults received the highest proportion of recommendations, with 98% of those familiar with it being either likely or highly likely to recommend it, followed by Keycloak at 95%.
Who it's for
- Platform engineering teams evaluating cloud native tooling
- Developers choosing between workflow automation, application delivery and security tools
- Technology leaders tracking adoption patterns across the cloud native landscape