Clusternet vs vCluster Platform
Clusternet
clusternet.io
vCluster Platform
vcluster.comSide by side
| Figure | Clusternet | vCluster Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 3 |
| Spec score · Kubernetes Management Platforms | 8.8 (#4) | 8.2 (#6) |
| Integrations | The documentation lists integration with Submariner and support for installing Helm charts from a private registry. | The pricing feature list names Cluster API, Terraform, Rancher, Prometheus ServiceMonitor, Metrics Server, Argo CD, Vault, cert-manager, External Secrets Operator, KubeVirt and Istio integrations. |
| Purpose | Clusternet is an open-source add-on for managing Kubernetes clusters across public, private, hybrid, and edge environments. | vCluster Platform provides a management plane for deploying, configuring, and operating tenant cluster fleets through a web UI, CLI, and API. |
| Security controls | Clusternet supports access to managed clusters with RBAC, and its AppPusher feature gate can be disabled on an agent when there are child-cluster security concerns. | Security guidance covers Pod Security Standards, rootless mode, RBAC, network policies, audit logging, encryption settings, FIPS images and air-gapped deployment. |
| Support | The contribution guide says users can ask for help through the project mailing list, CNCF Slack channel, Google Group, or a GitHub issue. | Enterprise plans include enterprise support, SLAs, and custom terms; the pricing page also lists priority support, private Slack or MS Teams channels, and video support. |
| What it does | Clusternet is an open source add-on for managing Kubernetes clusters across public cloud, private cloud, hybrid cloud, and edge environments. | vCluster Platform is a management plane for deploying, configuring and operating fleets of isolated tenant Kubernetes clusters across connected control-plane clusters. |
Plans
In their own words
Clusternet
Clusternet is a free, open-source add-on for managing Kubernetes clusters across public and private cloud, hybrid, on-premises, and edge environments. It lets operators manage member clusters from a parent cluster and access them as though they were local. It deploys Kubernetes resources, custom resource definitions, and Helm charts, with configuration tailored to individual clusters. Application scheduling can replicate workloads or distribute them by cluster weight or available capacity. Clusternet supports clusters from AWS, Google Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and Alibaba Cloud, along with on-premises systems, k3s, and edge clusters. It can discover and register clusters created by Cluster API and configure network tunnels for clusters in VPC networks, at the edge, or behind a firewall. Dynamic RBAC rules control access to managed clusters, and Submariner integration can connect workloads across clusters. Installation options include Helm and manual setup. A kubectl plugin is available through Krew or as a binary. Linux builds are listed for several architectures. Clusternet is a CNCF Sandbox project.
vCluster Platform
vCluster Platform is a management plane for deploying, configuring, and operating tenant cluster fleets through a web UI, CLI, and API. It manages tenants across EKS, GKE, AKS, bare metal, and private cloud, with isolated tenant clusters and shared-node, dedicated-node, private-node, Auto Nodes, and Standalone tenancy models. With vCluster Cloud, the platform is hosted while host and virtual clusters remain in the customer's infrastructure; self-hosted deployment puts the full platform there. The Free plan is free and permits unlimited virtual clusters within a limit of 64 CPUs or 32 GPUs, with a maximum of one HA vCluster. It also supports provisioning, multi-cluster management, policy enforcement, and upgrade management. Listed integrations include Terraform, Rancher, Argo CD, HashiCorp Vault, and Istio. Enterprise features include SSO, audit logging, vulnerability alerts, security review, FIPS-compliant images, enterprise support, and SLAs. One isolation caveat is that shared nodes share several underlying components across tenants, including the kernel, kubelet, node filesystem, and host network. The maker describes use by AI cloud providers and public and private cloud teams.