OpenStack Community Celebrates 15 Years with the Release of Flamingo!

OpenStack Community Marks 15 Years with the Flamingo Release

On October 1, 2025, the OpenStack community celebrated a remarkable milestone by releasing OpenStack 2025.2, nicknamed Flamingo. This marks the 32nd version of the renowned open-source cloud infrastructure software, emphasizing its sustained growth and impressive deployment figures as the community acknowledges 15 years of innovation.

Currently, OpenStack deployments surpass 55 million cores worldwide, showcasing its position as a vital framework for digital infrastructure. This number reflects contributions from a diverse array of users, from innovative startups to major players in various industries, highlighting how OpenStack remains a critical resource in cloud computing.

According to insights gathered from the 2025 OpenStack User Survey, the software's adaptation is on the rise across numerous sectors. Notable corporate giants including Walmart, Workday, and CERN operate one or more million cores, while a significant surge in deployment is particularly evident among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs). With the market for OpenStack projected to escalate from $22.81 billion in 2024 to an astounding $91.44 billion by 2029, it poises itself as an alternative to VMware and emerges as an effective platform for artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and high-performance computing (HPC) applications.

Thierry Carrez, the general manager of the OpenInfra Foundation, remarked, “OpenStack adoption is higher than ever, and the community continues to pour effort into the code, contributing to an ecosystem that serves a global audience. OpenStack exemplifies the best of open-source software, with a community that delivers reliable infrastructure while adapting to new challenges.”

The collaboration to create Flamingo involved nearly 480 contributors from major entities like Ericsson, Rackspace, Red Hat, and NVIDIA over a concerted six-month development period. Flamingo introduces nearly 8,000 changes, ensuring OpenStack remains at the forefront of technological advancement while addressing technical debts to fortify its performance for the future.

Key Features of the Flamingo Release

This release is distinguished by several key enhancements focused on resilience and modernization:

1. Technical Debt Reduction: Significant strides have been made in decreasing OpenStack’s reliance on older frameworks like Eventlet. Notably, during Flamingo’s development cycle, projects such as Ironic, Mistral, Barbican, and Heat completed migrations, while Nova and Neutron made headway in this area. Nine more projects are currently undergoing similar transitions, solidifying a sustainable foundation for the next 15 years.

2. Increased Security Features: The Flamingo release also brings an expansion of security measures, with Nova incorporating one-time-use passthrough devices and support for AMD SEV-ES. Other significant inclusions are facilitated by Magnum for Kubernetes cluster credential rotation, Manila enabling self-managed encryption keys, and Horizon providing QR codes to streamline the setup for TOTP authentication.

3. Flexible Release Cadence: The Flamingo version, structured as a “non-SLURP” release, allows operators a faster upgrade option between the community's annual SLURP releases. The next scheduled SLURP release, OpenStack 2026.1 (Gazpacho), is anticipated for April 2026.

Goutham Pacha Ravi, chair of the OpenStack Technical Committee, expressed pride in the community’s effort and cooperation that made the release possible. “We have made substantial progress in migrating from Eventlet, acknowledging the hard work over several release cycles. This advancement furthers our commitment to assure a secure and enduring OpenStack ecosystem moving forward.”

Availability

The new OpenStack Flamingo version is ready for download now. In-depth details are accessible, highlighting the features and improvements brought by the release. Community members can also delve deeper into the release in an interactive session on OpenInfra Live, scheduled for October 2 at 9 a.m. CT.

For ongoing discussions and collaborations, the OpenInfra Foundation is dedicated to building accessible and innovative open-source projects in infrastructure, predictive AI, and data center management. With over 110,000 supporters in 187 countries, the OpenInfra community continues to shape the future of open-source solutions.

Discover more about the OpenInfra Foundation and the ecosystem it supports, including other software projects such as Kata Containers, StarlingX, and Zuul, at www.openinfra.org.