Lens Just Got Better: A Fresher, More Powerful Version of Lens Out Now!

Today, as we celebrate the release of the latest version of Lens, we're proud to reflect on our journey. With over a million individual users and 50,000 organizations harnessing the power of Lens, we've grown to become a trusted tool among the world's most innovative startups and iconic enterprises. Our commitment has always been to provide an unparalleled user experience, and the feedback from these diverse teams has been instrumental in shaping our roadmap.

What’s New in the Latest Version of Lens?

The latest update to Lens introduces a host of enhancements that transform how you interact with Kubernetes, making the management of workloads more intuitive and efficient than ever. Here’s what you can expect:

• Revamped UI/UX: Experience our completely redesigned user interface, which promotes clarity and productivity. Every aspect, from navigation to data presentation, is optimized to enhance your user experience.
• Unified Navigator: Streamline your operations with our new navigator that integrates all cluster and resource management into a single, efficient interface. This reduces context switching and saves time, making your workflow smoother.
• Tabbed Navigation: Increase your efficiency with the ability to work in multiple tabbed views simultaneously. This feature allows for quicker task switching and better multitasking capabilities within the Lens environment.
• Enhanced Details Panel: We’ve reorganized and visually enhanced the details panel to highlight essential information more clearly, making it easier to digest critical data at a glance.
• Advanced Metrics View: Gain deeper insights with improved metrics views offering real-time and historical data. The innovative Event Overlay feature provides a simultaneous view of cluster events and metrics, crucial for effective troubleshooting and performance tuning.
• Performance and Stability Enhancements: We have made extensive performance improvements across various areas and addressed hundreds of bugs. These changes contribute to a more robust, faster, and more reliable Lens experience, ensuring smoother daily operations.
• Direct AWS EKS Integration: Connecting to AWS EKS clusters is now straightforward with direct discovery and access, fully respecting existing security and IAM configurations, ensuring a hassle-free integration. (Lens Pro feature)
• Improved Teamwork: Renovated teamwork management to share Lens Spaces and Clusters through a smoother, simpler process. Consolidated view to access your shared cluster faster in the same unified way that other clusters are accessed. (Lens Pro feature)
• Enhanced Security Center: Cleaner Security Center with a more consistent look and feel that lets you focus on finding security vulnerabilities easier. Improved support for Trivy, no matter how it was installed in your cluster. (Lens Pro feature)
• Better Accessibility: Improved keyboard navigation to access every section within the app with proper feedback and smoother transitions.

Other enhancements and bug fixes:

• Improved namespace selector providing more control through regular expressions.
• Fixed CPU/Memory consumption indicators in the Node Details panel.
• Implemented multiple performance improvements to load Kube resources faster in each tab.
• Added consistent navigation through different Kubernetes resources.
• Implemented keyboard shortcuts to navigate through the tab history.
• Improved Trivy detection to showcase security reports.
• Fixed pod shell failures on Windows.
• Fixed clickable links when shown in the terminal.
• Enhanced highlighting when searching through logs.
• Adjusted the behavior of the toolbar when inspecting logs from Pods, ReplicaSets, and Deployments.
• Removed managedFields from the editor when updating Kubernetes resources.
• Fixed the indication of default IngressClass and supported removal of the default class.
• Added new timeframes to the metrics charts.
• Fixed metrics charts not updating to new sources when settings are changed.
• Added support to display basic metrics based just on the metrics-server.
• Fixed bugs in time ranges when zooming in and out from the chart.
• Fixed display of rules in the Ingress table.
• Automatically disconnect from clusters when switching to different user accounts.
• Automatically remove port-forwards created when disconnecting from clusters.
• Display the region where the Lens Space agent is connected directly in the navigator.
• Added an indication to the navigator when a Lens Space agent is not deployed to a cluster.
• Fixed app crashing on MacOS when encrypted stores are reset.

Feature Deprecation and Removal:

In our commitment to delivering high-quality and relevant updates, we are streamlining Lens Desktop by removing features that no longer meet our users' evolving needs. This approach allows us to focus on developing new and enhanced functionalities that offer more significant benefits. Here are the features that are being deprecated and removed:

• Lens Desktop Kubernetes (LDK): Given its limited use and the challenges it presents, particularly on Windows platforms, we are deprecating LDK. Alternatives like Minikube and Kind provide a more reliable and flexible Kubernetes environment, which better serves our users' requirements.
• Local Image Scanning in Security Center: Due to its low usage and inconsistent performance across different cluster types, we are deprecating this feature. We will continue to focus on enhancing the core functionalities of the Security Center to better support your security needs.

These features will be unavailable to new users but remain accessible to existing users until their complete removal in the coming months. We encourage you to start transitioning to alternative solutions, and we are here to assist you during this change.

Availability & Pricing

The latest update to Lens is available starting today, with a range of plans designed to align closely with the value it delivers—from individual developers to large enterprises—and to support the continuous advancement of our platform. We remain committed to making Lens accessible while ensuring that we can keep innovating and supporting our diverse user base. Here’s an overview of the plans available:

• Lens Personal: Ideal for personal use, education, and startups with less than $10 million in annual revenue or funding. This plan is available free of charge.
• Lens Pro: Specifically designed for cloud-native professionals and those in larger businesses, this plan is priced at $25 per user per month (billed annually). It includes advanced features that enhance daily productivity and support complex operations.
• Lens Enterprise: Created for large organizations, the Enterprise plan is available for $50 per user per month (billed annually). It provides comprehensive security features and centralized management tools essential for enterprise-scale deployment and governance.

Explore the specific features and benefits of each plan on our pricing page. These options ensure that whether you're developing independently or as part of a large team, there's a Lens plan that fits your needs. If you're considering this for your team, share a link to this post with your manager to explore the benefits of Lens for your organization.

Your Feedback Matters

The early access period for the latest update to Lens was instrumental in shaping this release. We thank our community for their engagement and feedback, which have been crucial in refining the features and functionality of the platform. As always, we are committed to transparency and responsiveness to our user community's needs.

Get Ready to Experience The Latest Update

We are excited to invite you to get started with the latest update to Lens today! As we begin the rollout, existing users will receive in-app notifications to update to the latest version—this will be a phased release to ensure a smooth transition for all our users.

Your insights and feedback are invaluable to us. They empower us to refine Lens and expand the possibilities within Kubernetes management. As you explore the new functionalities, we encourage you to share your experiences and suggestions on the Lens Forums. Your contributions are crucial to our continuous innovation and leadership in the cloud-native space.

Download Lens from our website today and join us in setting new standards in Kubernetes management. We are excited to advance together, shaping the future of cloud-native technologies with your support.