Inspektor Gadget vs Metoro Kubernetes Profiling
Inspektor Gadget
inspektor-gadget.ioMetoro Kubernetes Profiling
metoro.ioSide by side
| Figure | Inspektor Gadget | Metoro Kubernetes Profiling |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $20/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 6 |
| Spec score · eBPF Observability Tools | 7.9 (#13) | 8.8 (#3) |
| Deployment | On Kubernetes, Inspektor Gadget is deployed as a DaemonSet, with one pod per cluster node. | Metoro is installed with Helm and is available as Metoro Cloud, BYOC, or on-premises deployment. |
| Kubernetes support | The requirements page lists Minikube, AKS, EKS, GKS, OpenShift, and Talos as supported platforms. | Metoro states support for EKS, GKE, AKS, OpenShift, Rancher, k3s, kind, and self-managed CNCF-conformant Kubernetes distributions; eBPF requires Linux kernel 4.18 or newer. |
| Purpose | Inspektor Gadget is a set of tools and a framework for eBPF-based data collection and system inspection on Kubernetes clusters and Linux hosts. | Metoro continuously profiles Kubernetes workloads using an eBPF sampling profiler running at the kernel level. |
| Security | Official image-based gadgets are signed with cosign, and the documentation describes verifying gadget signatures. | Metoro states SOC 2 Type II certification, TLS 1.3 in transit, AES-256 at rest, SSO/SAML, RBAC and audit logging for Cloud. |
Plans
Metoro Kubernetes Profiling
- HobbyFree
- Cloud$20 a month
- Scale$20 a month
- BYOCPrice not published
- EnterprisePriced on request
- On PremPrice not published
In their own words
Inspektor Gadget
Inspektor Gadget is an open-source toolkit and framework for collecting eBPF data and inspecting Kubernetes clusters and Linux hosts. Its gadgets package eBPF programs as OCI images that can be deployed to examine systems. The toolkit enriches low-level kernel data with context such as Kubernetes pod and container names, and can export collected information to observability tools. WebAssembly modules can process data and customize operators; developers can also use the framework through a Go library. In Kubernetes, it runs as a DaemonSet, with one pod on each cluster node. Project gadgets require Linux kernel 5.10 or later with BTF enabled. Supported Kubernetes environments include Minikube, AKS, EKS, GKS, OpenShift, and Talos; AWS Fargate, Azure Container Instances, and GKE Autopilot are listed as unsupported. Official image-based gadgets are signed, and operators can restrict which gadgets may run by digest, tag, or image prefix. Inspektor Gadget has no long-term support releases: only the latest release receives maintenance and security updates.
Metoro Kubernetes Profiling
Metoro Kubernetes Profiling continuously profiles Kubernetes workloads with an eBPF sampler running at the kernel level. It creates interactive flame graphs that can be grouped by service, pod, or container and filtered by cluster, namespace, deployment, or Kubernetes label. Metoro lists Go, Python, C++, C, Rust, Node.js, and Java support, with host-level frames for other runtimes. Profiling does not require SDKs, code changes, language agents, restarts, or rebuilds, and can cover third-party containers and vendor workloads. Profiles connect to Metoro APM traces, logs, metrics, pod state, and deployment context. Installation uses Helm, with Cloud, BYOC, and on-premises deployment options. The free Hobby plan includes one cluster, one user, and two nodes with 28-day retention. Scale costs $20 USD per node per month, plus $0.20 per GB above 100GB per node. Enterprise pricing is contract-based and offers custom retention and SLAs. eBPF requires Linux kernel 4.18 or newer.