Original Kubernetes Dashboard — retired upstream, upgraded to Angular 21.
Background
The official Kubernetes Dashboard was archived in January 2026. The Angular codebase was unmaintainable, the toolchain was fragile, and the upstream maintainers called it quits.
What happened till now
So time ago I posted this here We Rebuilt the Kubernetes Dashboard From Scratch — Here's What We Added and I liked the result, it works properly without any issues but somehow it does not "feel correct".
For years we used the Kubernetes Dashboard provided by The Kubernetes Authors and we somehow got used to the WebUI with that blue ribbon or those green "pies" that sometimes got yellow or red in Workloads.
FYI
Before I go any further, I would like to make a statement: I am not a developer, do not pretend to be one and hope one day maybe to be one.
I am active in Secure Systems Engineering and my knowledge of coding languages are the ones I use in my job such as Python or PowerShell or Bash but mainly in "execution mode" and sometimes in "troubleshooting mode" when they do not work...
With the emergence of AI such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Mistral or Claude, "coding" has become more accessible to humans without any coding knowledge. I will pass on the the "Vibe Coding" Topic fully as it's not in focus of this post.
Since the tools are there I decided to use them and do some projects, so yes I may be a "Vibe Coder" and I can live with that tag but the projects always apply Secure Systems Engineering Principals and when there is a knowledge lack I do not hesitate to ask my colleagues developers at work for advice.
Why it was rebuilt with React + MUI?
With help of Claude Code (the man's 2nd best friend after the dog...) we forked the original GitHub Repository, updated the Go Backend without any issues. When it came to the Angular update, well the things got complicated as the original project was in Angular 16 and we needed to update to Angular 21. So what went wrong? Well the human decided to not listen to his AI Assistant and we upgraded from 16 to 21 directly and unfortunately that was not a good idea. The WebUI did work but had lots of issues. We started fixing some but the result was not satisfactory and abandoned the upgrade project and built the React + MUI WebUI.
What happened next?
I was not fully satisfied of the React + MUI outcome as it somehow betrayed the spirit of the initial project so I decided to start all over again.
Claude Desktop was tasked to a deep technical and functionality analysis of the old stack
Claude Web did all the online research for the Angular Migration path, issues, hurdles,...
Claude Code was tasked to perform Angular Upgrade from 16 to 21 in steps and every time the stack was tested before upgrading to the next version.
What was the outcome?
We managed to perform properly the Angular Upgrade from 16 to 21 and got the original WebUI working properly with maybe some very very very very minor visual deviations that are hardly noticeable unless you do a side by side comparison with the old WebUI, which we did to correct bugs such as "Tooltips" or "Status Pills" and many more.
We are proud to present some screenshots of the final result:
What's next up?
Well for the moment nothing, we sit back and wait to see if it gets popular like the native one....
Final words
We understood why the initial team did not address the Angular Upgrade as the outcome is not certain and the effort is considerable for maybe a not satisfactory outcome.
We are pleased to have achieved this migration even if it was a hell of a work and hope the result will please the users of the native but now retired Kubernetes Dashboard.
Links
Kubernetes Dashboard: https://kubernetes-dashboard.com/
GitHub: https://github.com/isms-core-project/kubernetes-dashboard
Angular Migration
Angular Migration: https://kubernetes-dashboard.com/migration.html
Technical Paper:
Migrating a Retired Kubernetes Dashboard from Angular 16 to 21 using Claude Code
https://kubernetes-dashboard.com/paper.html
Acknowledgements
This project would have not being possible without Claude "in all flavours" (the man's 2nd best friend after the dog...)