Traefik Proxy 3.5 "Chabichou": A Delicate Masterpiece

Traefik Proxy 3.5 has arrived! Codenamed "Chabichou" (the elegant goat cheese from Poitou, France, with its distinctive conical shape and creamy, tangy flavor that develops beautifully with age), this release introduces an exciting Ingress NGINX Provider for seamless ingress-nginx migration, a completely rebuilt React-based dashboard, and full Gateway API v1.3 support, alongside post-quantum cryptography and enhanced ACME capabilities.

Let's unwrap this delicate masterpiece!

Key Features of Traefik Proxy v3.5

Ingress NGINX Provider: Your Migration Path Forward

With ingress-nginx entering maintenance mode and the ingate project still in early stages, the Kubernetes community needed a clear migration path. That's where Traefik 3.5 steps in! We're introducing an experimental Ingress NGINX Provider (#11844) designed to enable ingress-nginx users to migrate seamlessly to Traefik. With it, organizations can continue to use their existing ingress-nginx resources, without modification, directly in Traefik. This transition shouldn't require teams to rewrite manifests, retrain engineers, or disrupt operational workflows.

This isn't about building 100% compatibility with every NGINX annotation—instead, we're focused on providing a practical migration foundation that covers the most common use cases. Our goal is simple: offer you a drop-in replacement for the majority of scenarios, then enable you to progressively migrate to modern standards like Gateway API at your own pace.

This experimental feature represents our commitment to the community's needs during this transition period. It supports essential annotations and core functionality, with the potential for rapid evolution based on community feedback and contributions.

We're excited to see how the community embraces and enhances this foundation! Read more about this in this deep dive article.

Dashboard Renaissance: Modern Interface, Enhanced Dev Experience

Say hello to the future of Traefik management! The dashboard has been completely rebuilt using React (#11674), delivering a sleek, responsive, and intuitive interface that makes managing your proxy configuration a pleasure. Additionally, this provides a better development experience with the ability to use mocks in development mode.

The new React-based dashboard provides enhanced performance, better accessibility, and lays the foundation for exciting features in future releases.

Gateway API v1.3: Leading the Kubernetes Evolution

Traefik continues its leadership in Kubernetes networking with complete support for Gateway API v1.3 (#11719). This latest specification keeps improving this new standard and Traefik remains at the forefront of Kubernetes networking, keeping your infrastructure ahead of the rapidly evolving cloud-native landscape.

Additional Enhancements That Make a Difference

Future-Ready Security with Post-Quantum Cryptography

Prepare your applications for tomorrow's security challenges with the introduction of X25519MLKEM768 for Post-Quantum-Secure TLS (#11731). This cutting-edge cryptographic approach ensures your communications remain secure against future quantum computing threats.

Our sincere appreciation goes to fzoli for implementing this forward-thinking security enhancement that positions Traefik at the front line of cryptographic innovation.

ACME Excellence: Enhanced Certificate Management

Certificate management becomes even more powerful with several key improvements:

• OCSP Stapling Support (#8393)—Thanks to alekitto for implementing this performance and security enhancement
• HTTP Challenge Delay Configuration (#11643)—Kudos to ldez for adding fine-grained challenge control
• ACME Provider HTTP Timeout (#11637)—Appreciation to tkw1536 for improving reliability and customization

Advanced Health Check Capabilities

Health monitoring gets more sophisticated and flexible with unhealthy Interval Configuration (#10610)—Gratitude to sswastik02 for more granular health monitoring control

Kubernetes Integration Improvements

Kubernetes users benefit from enhanced compatibility and consistency: consistent Prefix Matching (#11203)—Our thanks to charlie0129 for aligning Ingress behavior with Kubernetes documentation standards

Middleware and Authentication Enhancements

• Improved ForwardAuth Context Handling (#11817)—Special recognition to bengentree for better context cancellation handling
• Enhanced Error Middleware Visualization (#11806)—Appreciation to sevensolutions for improved StatusRewrites option display

Plugin Development Evolution

Plugin developers gain more control and safety with the ability to enable unsafe operations through plugin manifests (#11589). Thanks to Rydez for expanding the plugin ecosystem's capabilities.

A Toast to Our Exceptional Community

Like the careful aging process that creates Chabichou's distinctive character, Traefik v3.5 is the result of months of dedication from our incredible community. Every bug report, feature request, code contribution, and documentation improvement has shaped this release into something truly special.

To every developer who opened an issue, every contributor who submitted a pull request, every user who provided feedback, and every community member who helped others—you are the artisans behind Traefik's continued excellence. Your passion and expertise continue to drive innovation in cloud-native networking.

Want to be a part of this awesome community? Join the discussions on our Community Forum or on GitHub where ideas flow as freely as conversations in a French café!

Essential Resources and Next Steps

• Download Traefik 3.5: GitHub Releases | Docker Hub
• Documentation: Complete Documentation
• GitHub Repository
• Community Forum
• Learn More: Official Website | Blog