Kubernetes Deployment Strategies: Rolling, Blue-Green, and Canary

Calendar February 22, 2026
Kubernetes
Intermediate
Deployment-Management, Zero-Downtime-Releases, Rollback-Operations
Deployments, Rolling-Update, Blue-Green, Canary, Rollback
Kubectl, Argo-Rollouts

Kubernetes Deployment Strategies#

Every deployment strategy answers the same question: how do you replace running pods with new ones without breaking things for users? The answer depends on your tolerance for downtime, risk appetite, and infrastructure complexity.

Rolling Update (Default)#

Rolling updates replace pods incrementally. Kubernetes creates new pods before killing old ones, keeping the service available throughout. This is the default strategy for Deployments.

apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: web-api
spec:
  replicas: 4
  strategy:
    type: RollingUpdate
    rollingUpdate:
      maxSurge: 1
      maxUnavailable: 1
  minReadySeconds: 10
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: web-api
  template:
    metadata:
      labels:
        app: web-api
    spec:
      containers:
      - name: web-api
        image: web-api:2.1.0
        readinessProbe:
          httpGet:
            path: /healthz
            port: 8080
          initialDelaySeconds: 5
          periodSeconds: 5

Key parameters: