Retina

Spec sheet

Product

Retina is an open-source Kubernetes network observability platform for monitoring application health, network health, and security.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Intended users

Retina is aimed at cluster network administrators, cluster security administrators, and DevOps engineers working on DevOps, SecOps, and compliance use cases.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Deployment

Retina is installed into an existing Kubernetes cluster using Helm.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Integrations

Retina integrates with Cilium Hubble for additional network insights, including flow logs and DNS information.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Security

The project states that Retina images published to GHCR are cryptographically signed and provides cosign verification instructions.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Support

The project directs bug reports and feature requests to GitHub issues and lists [email protected] for other maintainer contact.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

License

The repository uses the MIT License, which grants permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, sublicense, and sell copies of the software subject to its terms.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Capture limitation

The Capture CRD requires the Standard control plane and a running Retina operator, while captures can also be triggered with the CLI without the operator.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

CLI platforms

The Retina CLI supports Linux, Windows, and macOS on x86_64 and ARM64.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Cloud and CNI support

The project says it works with cloud or on-premises Kubernetes distributions and multiple CNIs, including Azure CNI and AWS VPC.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Data collection

It uses eBPF plugins to collect and enrich network telemetry with Kubernetes context.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

eBPF

Retina uses eBPF to collect network telemetry from Kubernetes workloads.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Metrics

It provides industry-standard Prometheus metrics for cluster network observability.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Metrics destinations

Retina telemetry can be exported to Prometheus and Azure Monitor and visualized with tools such as Grafana and Azure Log Analytics.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Notable limitation

The project reports performance considerations for Advanced metrics with the packetparser plugin on nodes with 32 or more CPU cores under high network load.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Packet capture

Retina can run distributed packet captures across nodes hosting selected pods and upload the results to storage.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Packet captures

It supports distributed packet captures initiated through its CLI or a Kubernetes Capture resource.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Performance limitation

The documentation reports community concerns about performance on systems with 32 or more CPU cores under sustained, high-volume network load when using Advanced metrics with packetparser.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Requirements

Installation requires an existing Kubernetes cluster and Helm version 3.8.0 or later; Retina documents Linux kernel 5.4.0 as its minimum.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Supported environments

The project says it works with cloud or on-premises Kubernetes distributions and multiple operating systems, including Linux and Windows.Read 9 Oct 2026 · retina.sh

Windows limitation

Retina no longer supports Windows Server 2019 nodes; the project directs users to Windows Server 2022 for Windows workloads.Read 9 Oct 2026 · github.com

Where Specifiction places it

• eBPF Observability Tools#26 of 297.0