On September 11, 2026, Portainer’s CEO announced that 3.0, now Kubernetes-first, will not ship as a Community Edition: CE stays frozen on the 2.x branch. Self-hosters on Docker can remain on 2.45 LTS, which keeps receiving security fixes, but should plan their path forward.

On August 27, 2026, Portainer moved its LTS line from 2.39.6 to 2.45.0, consolidating a year of short-term releases. The part that matters is not cosmetic: Pod Security Standards, native Kubernetes RBAC, and scheduled image pruning now live inside the UI.

Portainer 2.39.5 LTS shipped on July 13, 2026, and STS 2.43 brings native Kubernetes RBAC. The Business Edition is free for 3 nodes with no time limit, including RBAC, GitOps, and full audit logging. For any homelab up to three machines, it’s a no-brainer; beyond that, the cost pays for itself the moment you have a team.