CAST AI vs OpenCost

CAST AI is an Application Performance Automation platform for cloud-native operations and Kubernetes automation. It automates workload rightsizing, node scaling, GPU and Spot optimization, and issue remediation. Rightsizing adjusts CPU and memory requests, limits, and replicas in response to workload behavior. The platform says its engine can predict Spot interruptions up to 30 minutes ahead and migrate workloads before a slowdown. Agentic runbooks can address operational and security issues, with approval required for each change before it ships.

Teams can connect clusters in read-only mode without infrastructure changes. Listed environments include AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, OpenShift, Rancher, VMware Tanzu, AliCloud, kOps, PostgreSQL, MySQL, and on-prem Kubernetes. Cost tools include allocation, spend forecasting, rightsizing guidance, and commitment management. CAST AI integrates with tools including Grafana, Terraform, Prometheus, Jira, and Pulumi. It is available on the web and as self-hosted software. Pricing is custom and available on request; a free trial is available.

OpenCost is a vendor-neutral open source project for measuring and allocating Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure costs. It breaks down costs in real time to Kubernetes concepts and containers for showback, chargeback, and reporting. Allocation covers CPU, GPU, memory, load balancers, and persistent volumes, and it can monitor cloud resources outside Kubernetes. The included web UI visualizes Kubernetes allocations and related cloud costs. Its API provides real-time and historical Kubernetes cost reports using on-demand list prices and cloud provider cost and usage reports. Listed cloud providers include Alibaba, AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure, Open Telekom Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, OVHcloud, Scaleway, and STACKIT. Metrics and visualization integrations include Prometheus, Cortex, Thanos, Victoria Metrics, Grafana, and Grafana Cloud. OpenCost requires a Kubernetes cluster and Prometheus; Helm is recommended for full functionality. Cloud costs appear when provider billing data becomes available, usually several hours to 24 hours later, and on-demand pricing is not reconciled against billed actual costs. Cloud costs are not supported for on-premises clusters. OpenCost is free under Apache 2.0.