We are happy to announce a new Stable release for Lens Desktop that addresses multiple bugs and offers a new set of features as a response to the valuable feedback we have gathered from our community.
To ensure a smooth transition and minimize disruption we’ll start by rolling out the update to a small portion of our users, then incrementally increasing this number until all users have access to the update. If you have not received the update and wish to try it out, you can download this version manually at our website .
Check our latest blog post “Hotbar Is Back” to learn more about one of the highlights of this release.
Here’s what you can expect:
Hotbar is back.: Pro and Enterprise customers can start using it today!
Improved Dock: Smoother user experience with reduced flickering.
CronJobs Execution Time: Display the next execution time for CronJobs.
Persistent Column Visibility: Kubernetes resource tables now retain column visibility settings per cluster.
Prometheus Metrics with HTTPS Support: Secure connections are now supported.
Teamwork Cluster Info Icon: Added an info icon for clusters that are not yet deployed.
Node Shell Enhancement: A banner now displays the node name in the node shell.
Pod Shell & Attach Updates: Container information is now shown in a banner.
Cluster Color Inference: Cluster color is now automatically determined based on the custom cluster icon (if set).
Enhanced Tooltips: Resource tooltips in the Navigator now include cluster names for better context.
Refined Context Menus: Improved styling for context menus to enhance usability.
Bug Fixes
Fixed Node Shell not working for some users.
Renamed reveal clusters in the command palette for clarity.
Fixed icon for not deployed teamwork cluster.
Navigator nodes always focus when drilling down or up.
Clusters with unsupported auth apiVersion are now kept in the navigator.
Display the pod name in the logs even if the pod no longer exists.
Always show the release notes tab even if drilled-in.
Fixed AWS EKS loading spinner indefinitely for partial results.
Fixed jumping cursor on inputs.
Always set and read from both casings of path for windows.
Fixed unhandled exception during cluster disconnect.
Fixed extensions being leaked on close.
Fixed error handling in resource create.
Fixed correct filename for saved logs.
Made prometheus metrics settings persisted even if no address provided.
Removed gap under pod logs view.
Fixed notification link color.
Prevented navigator create keyboard shortcut from opening the create input field.
Constrained the current drilled-down entity field to the navigator width.
Prevented previously discovered EKS clusters from being removed.
Added check for token expiry before making requests to Lens.
Fixed opening details panel on sharable link.
Close menu from dropdown indicator.
Fixed table scrolling bug.
Fixed duplicate logs.
Fixed fetching of logs for multiple containers and pod names.
Hotbar Availability – Here’s What You Need to Know
Hotbar will be included as a feature in our Pro and Enterprise plans going forward.
That said, we deeply appreciate how important Hotbar has been for many of our long-time Lens users—regardless of plan. You’ve helped us grow into what Lens is today, and we want to recognize that. So, we’re planning to reward all long-time users with access to Hotbar feature in the coming days and weeks.
While we work out the details of that rollout, we didn’t want to keep our Pro and Enterprise users waiting—Hotbar is available for them starting now with the latest release.
Hello! Great question! Yes, Hotbar is available for our Pro and Enterprise plans going forward. However, we are also going to enable this feature to our long-time Lens users in the coming days and weeks (we are still trying to figure out details how to do this rollout). Stay tuned!
This seems like an awesome, elaborate joke, “great” job Mirantis.
How to: Product design in 21st century:
have a great feature users love,
intentionally remove it, worsening UX and product navigation,
return it back with an over-hyped email and release notes but now only for paid users.
Being mainly developer, I do not work with too many clusters, yet, the removal of hotbar significantly worsened my user experience. At first I even thought it was a bug. Your excuse that “Personal” users do not need hotbar is ridiculous, far from truth.
Sadly for us, and lucky for you, you are still market leader when it comes to k8s IDE solution, and in other aspect the experience you offer is great. I just wish you kept agile and customer-focused.
Thanks for the thoughtful and passionate feedback—we really appreciate you taking the time to share it.
To clarify a few things that may have been misunderstood: We didn’t remove Hotbar as part of some strategy or intentionally restrict it to push people toward paid plans. When we launched the new UI/UX in late 2024, we simply couldn’t bring Hotbar over in time for that initial release. Internally, we had learned to work with the new layout and honestly underestimated just how critical Hotbar was for many of our longtime users. That’s on us—and looking back, we probably should have waited until all the key pieces were in place before rolling out the new experience.
That said, if you’re a long-time Personal user, rest assured—nothing is being taken away from you. As mentioned earlier, we’re planning to reward all long-time Personal users with access to the Hotbar feature in the coming days and weeks. Hotbar simply didn’t make it into the initial release of the new UI/UX back in October 2024 due to time constraints. Now that we’ve brought it back, we’re making it available right away to Pro and Enterprise users, as well as to all users who’ve come to rely on it over the years.
For new users who started with the latest UI, Hotbar wasn’t part of their experience to begin with—so there’s nothing being removed. Our goal is to provide the best possible experience for all users, while also offering tangible value in our paid tiers.
Thank you again for helping us stay grounded. We’re committed to keeping Lens the best Kubernetes IDE out there—for everyone.
First of all, I’d like to thank the team for all the ongoing efforts. I also want to share some feedback that I believe reflects the opinion of many users.
The navigation bar was something that just worked — and it was available to everyone. Now, it has been removed and placed behind a paywall. The replacement, which even you’ve acknowledged isn’t great, feels clunky, unproductive, and barely usable.
Let’s be honest — this isn’t an innovative feature or a premium upgrade. It’s just a basic navigation tool, essential for switching between clusters. It’s difficult to understand how removing such a fundamental UI element and monetizing it is considered a step forward.
While I appreciate the need to offer more to paid users, this approach feels like a downgrade for the rest of the community. If you want to enhance the paid experience, please add real value — not by disabling features that were already part of the core experience.
Thanks for the honest feedback—we truly appreciate you taking the time to share your perspective.
Hotbar is a highly valued feature—used by many power users, but also appreciated by those with just a few clusters. We get that. At the same time, we’re building a sustainable business around Lens, and that means drawing a clear line between what’s included in the free Personal plan and what belongs in our paid offerings.
Going forward, Hotbar will be included in Pro and Enterprise plans as part of the added value and convenience those tiers are designed to offer. We remain committed to keeping the core Kubernetes experience in Lens free and fully capable, while our paid plans will continue to offer enhanced functionality for more advanced or high-efficiency workflows.
Importantly, we’re not taking anything away from long-time users. As explained earlier, if you’ve relied on Hotbar—or any other functionality you previously had under the Personal plan—you’ll continue to have access. We’re making sure of that. Our goal is to strike the right balance: to keep Lens the best tool for working with Kubernetes, while ensuring we can continue to invest in its future.
Having released a new crappy UI at the end of last year, which you are STILL patching, and knowing that the hotbar is one of the most requested things to return, you are now offering it for money?
After releasing the shittiest UI, many administrators who managed a bunch of clusters turned away from you, now you are driving away with your own hands those developers who used the lens for several clusters and who actually used the hotbar.
It feels like some new person came to your staff, who said “Everything is crap, I personally don’t like it - redo everything! Users? Who cares about them, they will tolerate it!”
And now, he is receiving a “medal” from the management for returning what was already there and worked.
The product was perfect, but you yourself are systematically killing it with your own hands!
I still use the old version only because of the hotbar and the clean, simple and convenient interface.
“we’re planning to reward all long-time Personal users with access to the Hotbar feature”
How long should a user use the personal version of Lens to qualify as a “long-time Personal user”?
cronjob view seems to be broken now with the following schedule “0 0 29 2 *”
Error: Invalid explicit day of month definition
at new CronFieldCollection (https:// lens.app:56753/build/lens.js?2bb7c393cd84ba207777:8:474975)
at CronExpressionParser.parse (https:// lens.app:56753/build/lens.js?2bb7c393cd84ba207777:8:470558)
at https:// lens.app:56753/build/lens.js?2bb7c393cd84ba207777:2:3678090
at Object.apply (https:// lens.app:56753/build/lens.js?2bb7c393cd84ba207777:2:7902657)
at renderTableContents (https:// lens.app:56753/build/lens.js?2bb7c393cd84ba207777:2:1086111)
at renderTableContents (https:// lens.app:56753/build/lens.js?2bb7c393cd84ba207777:2:5460691)
at le.getTableCells (https:// lens.app:56753/build/lens.js?2bb7c393cd84ba207777:2:5041407)
at children (https:// lens.app:56753/build/lens.js?2bb7c393cd84ba207777:2:5042080)
at https:// lens.app:56753/build/lens.js?2bb7c393cd84ba207777:8:1959599
at It (https:// lens.app:56753/build/lens.js?2bb7c393cd84ba207777:8:2015263)
I just want to offer a different perspective. I was one of the long time users that provided feedback about the missing hotbar in the new UI/UX. My workflow definitely suffered without the hotbar initially, and I wasn’t shy about saying so. At some point, though, I realized I could name my clusters using numbered prefixes to get the new UI/UX to display them in the order that I was used to with the hotbar. I started with 01-, then went to 20- for my second hotbar, and 30- for my third (I didn’t have #2 maxed out). It did take some time to make all the naming changes, and I can understand the impact to those who have to sort through hundreds of clusters. Now that I’ve gotten things back into an order that approximates what I was used to and loved, the new UI isn’t the hinderance it was initially. I actually found that I can navigate around the new UI with pretty much the same speed as the old now.
I wish I could group/accordion my tabs by cluster so I could see more of them without having to scroll back and forth when I am comparing/managing several clusters (the scroll bar is a bit hard to find in the dark theme sometimes), but I understand software is always a work in progress. I’ve also had some issues with not being able to search for strings with dashes in them, but again, work in progress.
I’m excited to have the hotbar back, and I am glad that the Lens folks heard us. I will mention that I miss the text indicators that used to be in the hotbar icons (again, I named things so I could visually tell the icons apart, as opposed to remembering the color attached to the environment). However, I do think the icon color picker is excellent!
As long as the improvements keep coming, I can put the issues with the new UI/UX rollout in my rear-view. Thank you for working hard to address our concerns.
Thanks for the detailed feedback. For your information the text labels for the hotbar icons are being currently worked on so should be available in the near future.
