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What is OpenChoreo?

OpenChoreo is an open-source Internal Developer Platform (IDP) that makes Kubernetes accessible to development teams. It provides a complete platform engineering solution that transforms complex infrastructure into simple, self-service developer experiences.

OpenChoreo brings the best ideas from WSO2 Choreo (an enterprise IDP) to the open-source community.

Who Should Use OpenChoreo?​

OpenChoreo is designed for:

  • Platform Engineering Teams building internal developer platforms on Kubernetes
  • DevOps Teams looking to standardize deployments and reduce operational overhead
  • Development Teams wanting self-service deployment without infrastructure complexity
  • Organizations seeking to accelerate cloud-native adoption while maintaining security and compliance

The Problem​

Modern cloud-native development has become unnecessarily complex:

  • Kubernetes is powerful but overwhelming: Developers need to understand pods, services, ingress, ConfigMaps, and dozens of other concepts just to deploy a simple application
  • Every team reinvents the wheel: Without standards, each team creates their own deployment patterns, leading to inconsistency and technical debt
  • Security is an afterthought: Teams often sacrifice security for speed, leaving applications vulnerable
  • Platform building is expensive: Companies spend months or years building internal platforms from scratch

How OpenChoreo Solves It​

OpenChoreo provides a layered approach with clear separation between platform engineering and development:

For Platform Engineers:

  • Set up Data, Build, and Observability Planes for infrastructure separation
  • Define Organizations for multi-tenant isolation
  • Configure Environments on DataPlanes
  • Create Classes (ServiceClass, WebApplicationClass) to enforce standards
  • Configure DeploymentPipelines for promotion workflows

For Developers:

  • Create Projects to organize related services (aligned with DDD bounded contexts)
  • Define Components for applications
  • Specify Workloads with runtime configurations
  • Deploy applications (Services, WebApplications, ScheduledTasks) using platform Classes

The platform automatically handles the complexity of Kubernetes, including:

  • Cell-based isolation with zero-trust networking
  • Automatic mTLS for all service communication
  • Built-in observability and distributed tracing
  • CI/CD pipelines with GitOps workflows
  • RBAC and access control

What Makes OpenChoreo Different​

  • Kubernetes Native: Built as operators extending Kubernetes, not a layer on top
  • Complete Solution: Includes build, deploy, networking, API management, and observability—not just a UI
  • Open Source: No vendor lock-in, transparent development, community-driven
  • Separation of Concerns: Platform engineers define standards through Classes, developers express intent through Claims

Built on proven CNCF projects including Cilium (eBPF networking), Buildpacks, Argo (workflows), and Envoy Gateway (API management).

Current Status​

OpenChoreo is currently in active development (v1alpha1). While the core platform is functional, APIs may change as we incorporate community feedback. We recommend starting with non-production workloads as you evaluate the platform.

See our Roadmap for upcoming features and stable release timeline.

Getting Started​

Ready to try OpenChoreo? Start here:

  1. Architecture - Understand the multi-plane architecture
  2. Quick Start Guide - Try OpenChoreo in minutes using a Dev Container
  3. Installation Guide - Deploy OpenChoreo in your environment
  4. Concepts - Learn the platform abstractions

Community​

OpenChoreo is an open-source project that welcomes contributions. Join our community: