OpenShift Community Version: An Enterprise-Grade Kubernetes Platform for Everyone

The console glows. A cluster spins up. You are inside the OpenShift Community Version.

OpenShift Community Version is the free, open-source edition of Red Hat OpenShift. It delivers a full Kubernetes platform with integrated developer tools, CI/CD pipelines, and automated operations. It is built for running containers at scale. Every feature in this version comes from the same engineering core as the paid tiers, but without licensing costs. It is ideal for testing, learning, and deploying non-production workloads.

This community distribution supports multi-cluster orchestration, standard Kubernetes API compatibility, and operator-based management. You get built-in logging, monitoring, and service mesh support. The web console and CLI give you quick control over deployments, scaling, and networking. It supports hybrid cloud, bare metal, and local development clusters. Whether you deploy on AWS, Azure, GCP, or on-prem, the OpenShift Community Version offers the same declarative configuration model.

Installation is straightforward with CodeReady Containers for local setups or OKD for full-scale clusters. OpenShift Community Version integrates with GitOps workflows, container registries, and popular CI/CD tools. Developers can push code directly to the platform, trigger builds, and roll out updates automatically. Security is enforced with role-based access control, secrets management, and continuous scans of container images.

Engineers use the Community Version to prototype microservices architectures, run staging environments, or validate infrastructure changes. Operators get the same powerful self-healing features as in commercial OpenShift: pods restart automatically, workloads reschedule when nodes fail, and updates roll out with zero downtime.

OpenShift Community Version is more than a sandbox. It is a complete, enterprise-grade container platform you can run without a contract. It delivers production tooling, but leaves you in control of costs and hardware choices.

If you want to see OpenShift Community Version in action without complex setup, launch it now with hoop.dev. You can have it live in minutes.