Canonical is the company behind Ubuntu, arguably the world’s most popular Linux distribution. Founded by Mark Shuttleworth in 2004, the company set out to make Linux accessible to everyone with the motto “Linux for Human Beings.” Today, Ubuntu dominates the cloud — it’s the most deployed operating system on both AWS and Google Cloud.
Canonical’s enterprise products include Ubuntu Pro (extended security maintenance), MAAS (Metal as a Service for bare-metal provisioning), Juju (application modeling), LXD (system containers), and MicroK8s (lightweight Kubernetes). The company also develops Snap packages, a universal Linux packaging format.
Ubuntu’s popularity in cloud and container environments is hard to overstate. A huge percentage of Docker containers run on Ubuntu base images, and most cloud tutorials and documentation default to Ubuntu. This dominance feeds a virtuous cycle of community support and commercial adoption.
Canonical remains privately held, with Shuttleworth maintaining control. The company has been preparing for an IPO for several years, having reached profitability. Canonical employs a globally distributed workforce and is headquartered in London, with Shuttleworth himself based on the Isle of Man.
