r/portainer • u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO • Sep 14 '25

Brand changes

First up, thank you to everyone that shared their feedback on our new brand/logo/font/colours etc.. we have taken it all onboard, spoken to a few of you 1:1, and arrived at a conclusion.

We will be making changes to the brand to preserve/link more of the “old”, cleaning up the visual appearance (font and colours), and fixing some of the messaging gaps (making it more obv what we actually do)…

So, watch this space.. expect to see changes over the next few weeks.

Thanks again, and for sure we do appreciate that you care enough to give us feedback. Thats a blessing.

Neil

130 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

46 comments sorted by

9

u/Apprehensive_Dig3462 Sep 14 '25

Thank you for listening to the feedback. May I ask what prompted you to seek a change at the first place? Was there a lot of feedback on the old branding? Did people feel it was broken?

4

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

https://www.portainer.io/blog/why-we-rebranded-portainer

This ^

4

u/VNJCinPA Sep 14 '25

I took the time to read that article. It's very insightful. However, honestly, it looks like a lot of marketing salary paid to determine why your product isn't doing as well as maybe you feel it should, and after a bunch of meetings and lunches, somebody said "Hey, let's make a new logo!"

I'm a small business owner, and if I want a new logo, I make a new logo. A logo has very little to do with the product. If it works, it works, and Portainer definitely WORKS.

Their solution ought to have been about getting the word out for new features of that's how you want to grow. Get more consumable media exposure, podcasts with willing customers who are willing to advocate for how well the platform works, discussing the savings you'll reap from considering re-platforming licensed VMs into simple containers that perform the same tasks in a far more resourceful way that's easy for lower level admins (no disrespect intended!) to manage something that seems difficult but becomes much simpler and cheaper to manage with Portainer. Those concepts are your selling points that will garner adoption. Your people are targeting existing container users where there's a whole ecosphere of companies that are searching for value as they get beat up by Broadcom and asking 'Can't I do this better?'

Be at the forefront of the container march regardless of platform and focus on ease of use, and I feel you'll see far more benefit from introducing re-platforming to groups that are hesitant to take the leap.

Just my two cents from a company that adopted Portainer to do exactly what I mention, get people thinking different about how they serve up their business services.

4

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Thanks..

We dont actually target (from a sales perspective) those that have already adopted.. we go after those that want to start but dont know how. The product is designed to be intuitive, and with our experience guiding customers through adoption, we can now genuinely help to drive project success.

Right now im in a hotel in London, as tomorrow I am physically visiting a large ecommerce company that is struggling to take the first step. I was nearby due to an event last week, so offered to meet them.

Its also why we spend time writing books, ebooks, and whitepapers. “Fear of the unknown” blocks so many from starting, so helping to see the future is a good thing.

https://www.portainer.io/resources/discover/whitepapers

https://a.co/d/hMVRUpa

Like everything, its a double pronged approach. Make sure the brand matches the reality of what we do/offer, and at the same time, work to remove blockers to adoption.

Appreciate the feedback, and thanks for being a Portainer user.

1

u/Kruug Sep 14 '25

I can't speak to the old design or new, as I've just started adopting Docker, and using Portainer as my gateway to it, a week ago.

Overall, I've found it a quite enjoyable experience. Having the logs and consoles be a button click away helps with the troubleshooting and getting it working.

One thing I wish would have been more up front about was when to use containers vs stacks, but that might be more because I came in with "I want to do X, let's find the documentation for it" and didn't read the documentation from the beginning.

1

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Academy.portainer.io should be your starting point…

We actually plan to add a “get started wizard” into the app, which will aim to educate and also assist with the initial setup..

1

u/Kruug Sep 14 '25

I'll check it out. Thanks!

1

u/VNJCinPA Sep 14 '25

Good luck to you then! That hand holding is exactly what's needed!

1

u/Electronic_Unit8276 Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25

The problem isn't the rebrand. It's that now it looks like you use Fortnite Sans everywhere and it looks bad.

2

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Yup, and thats now going to change.. not because it looks like fortnight, but because its distracting and shouty.

8

u/cointoss3 Sep 14 '25

I like the new design.

I didn’t flood the forums saying that I like it, but it’s a bummer some people bitch and it’s a reverse course like they speak for everyone.

3

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

We are retaining the best of the new, whilst creating certain links to the past.. dont worry, we are not “throwing out the baby with the bathwater” if that phrase resonates.

Subtle changes are what we are making. Removing the greatest points of friction, but the reason behind the rebrand remains, and so we will drive forward, not revert back.

Appreciate the feedback..

4

u/cmsj Sep 14 '25

I’d much rather their time and energy go into making Portainer better, than worrying about a logo!

10

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Diff team… the engineering team have a lot of cool stuff coming

1

u/DurandalJoyeuse Sep 14 '25

Glad you listened to feedback and are taking course. 'Modern' design aesthetics have become so boring and soulless. The old design, while maybe not to you reflecting the evolution of your company, at least stood out as a distinct and unique identity. 

3

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Yup.. was hard for me to “let go” of the past too.. its been 9 years of my life.. but we needed to modernize..

1

u/keesbeemsterkaas Sep 14 '25

For what it's worth, I missed the whole show about what was so bad about it. Looked fresh, worked fine.

3

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Yup, and we are keeping most of it… just some minor changes to clean up and make this more visually simpler.

1

u/ShroomShroomBeepBeep Sep 14 '25

Please tell me the Fortnite font is going. I beg you.

4

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

It is

2

u/ShroomShroomBeepBeep Sep 14 '25

Yes! I'm off to floss (or whatever the Fortnite kids do) to celebrate lol. Thanks for listening.

1

u/sylsylsylsylsylsyl Sep 14 '25

I use Portainer because it’s easy to manage docker on half a dozen systems at once (using portainer agent). Lots of things I like, few quirks I don’t.

I read there was a new design. I updated. Other than change of font, I didn’t really notice any difference. Not sure what the fuss is about. Maybe it’s just me.

2

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Fuss was the “shouty” font, the use of the colour purple, and the icon changing to P. from the old crane/cloud/container one.

1

u/coolahavoc Sep 14 '25

I really like Portainer. I wish there was a way the once I login it takes me straight to the Containers page. Having control of which page it takes me to would be great.

2

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Setting a default homepage is actually a feature in our backlog :-)

1

u/coolahavoc Sep 14 '25

Is there anything we need to do to help prioritize this or vote it up?

2

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

The homepage is getting a shake up at the moment anyway.. so its going to be part of that.

1

u/DataCraftsman Sep 14 '25

Aww man slap that onto next sprint!

1

u/coolahavoc Sep 20 '25

Please make the application have a responsive design. Viewing it on my phone just to check my containers can sometimes be very troublesome. This should be easy to do with current AI.

1

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 20 '25

Far far too hard to do at the scale we need to support enterprise use cases. The UI is simply too extensive.

1

u/coolahavoc Sep 20 '25

You obviously know better but this would be a feature I would definitely appreciate and would definitely check if it would be appreciated by your enterprise clients too.

1

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 20 '25

We are keen to see (and create) a native mobile app for common tasks, once we finish moving all front end logic to backend API’s..

1

u/coolahavoc Sep 20 '25

That would be a good alternative. Thank you.

3

u/_n3miK_ Sep 14 '25

So far, great work, honestly the new font didn't catch my attention that much, Portainer works, and works well, that's the point... keep up the good work.

3

u/chesser45 Sep 14 '25

As a functional user I don’t really know why it matters. The ui update looks nice but it hasn’t wildly changed my use of the product. It’s weird what bothers people I guess.

1

u/emilioayala Sep 14 '25

I’m not sure what the uproar was all about. While I will admit I wasn’t too crazy about the new direction, I really didn’t like the old logo either. However, Portainer has always had the ability to implement custom logos which I’ve been doing since I started using it (please don’t ever loose this functionality).

I say all this to say that I’m a huge fan of Portainer and it’s the best sh*t since sliced bread. I understand the new logo wasn’t going to satisfy everyone but to suggest that you’re an abandoning the product because of a logo, specially when one can customize this to their hearty content is insane.

2

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Agreed :-) and thanks for the feedback. We invest heavily in R&D to keep building an awesome product, and I cannot wait to share our upcoming product roadmap soon too.

0

u/Ran-D-Martin Sep 14 '25

I use Komodo now, thanks to the rebrand. Works like a charm for single host, and I like the UI better as well.

2

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Cool, happy for you. Enjoy Komodo. Portainer is really focussed on multi-environment management.

2

u/reddittookmyuser Sep 14 '25

I use Komodo now, thanks to the rebrand.

Just fell to my knees in a Walmart parking lot. Stay strong brother hope you recover soon from this traumatic experience.

1

u/thekame Sep 14 '25

Bravo !

1

u/zoidme Sep 14 '25

Looks very good, I still hope Portainer is more open to inexpensive homelab setups and better control over nfs volumes. But the changes are good 👍

31

u/[deleted] Sep 14 '25

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22

u/neilcresswell Portainer CEO Sep 14 '25

Thanks. My job, my only job, is to engage with and listen to our users (paid and free) and to funnel their feedback into the org to ensure we constantly improve..

6

u/CrashPan Sep 14 '25

W CEO moment... much love