K3s vs KubeSphere
K3s
k3s.io
KubeSphere
kubesphere.ioSide by side
| Figure | K3s | KubeSphere |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $65/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 8 |
| Spec score · Container Orchestration Software | 7.7 (#13) | 8.9 (#2) |
| Spec score · Container Management Software | 7.8 (#15) | 9.0 (#1) |
| Integrations | The upgrade documentation describes Kubernetes-native automated upgrades using Rancher's system-upgrade-controller. | Official materials identify integrations or ecosystem collaboration with Jenkins, Grafana, Loki, Higress, KubeKey, OpenELB, KubeEye, Fluent Operator, and OpenFunction. |
| Security | The security documentation provides hardening guidance and CIS benchmark self-assessment guides, which assume K3s runs with embedded etcd. | The Enterprise kernel adds security features including image security hardening, two-factor authentication and vulnerability fixes. |
Plans
KubeSphere
- KubeSphere Backup FreeFree
- KubeSphere Community EditionFree
- KubeSphere Community EditionFree
- KubeSphere Backup Basic$65 a month
- KubeSphere Backup Standard$200 a month
- KubeSphere Backup Enterprise$340 a month
- KubeSphere Backup ExclusivePriced on request
- KubeSphere EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
K3s
K3s is a certified, lightweight Kubernetes distribution for IoT and edge computing. It runs self-hosted on Linux and is released for x86_64, ARMv7, and ARM64. The distribution arrives as one binary or a minimal container image; the site describes the binary as under 70 MB, while documentation says under 100 MB. Documented uses include edge systems, homelabs, IoT, continuous integration, development, ARM single-board computers, air-gapped environments, and embedded Kubernetes. SQLite is the default datastore, with etcd, MySQL, and Postgres available. K3s packages containerd or cri-dockerd, Flannel, CoreDNS, Traefik, ServiceLB, Kube-router, local-path-provisioner, and Spegel. High-availability deployments can use embedded storage or external MySQL, PostgreSQL, or etcd. Air-gapped installation supports private registries, manually deployed images, or an embedded registry mirror. Security guidance includes hardening and CIS self-assessment material. Automated Kubernetes-native upgrades use Rancher’s system-upgrade-controller.
KubeSphere
KubeSphere is a Kubernetes-based platform for managing cloud-native applications, with a plug-in architecture for third-party applications and open-source tools. Its Community Edition is an open-source container platform and costs nothing, with free-forever availability for a self-managed Kubernetes platform. The platform supports multi-tenancy and multi-cluster management, with monitoring, event and audit-log queries, tenant log collection, alerting and notifications. Delivery features include Jenkins-based CI/CD and automated Source-to-Image and Binary-to-Image workflows. KubeSphere supports online or offline installation, one-click upgrades and cluster scaling across infrastructure environments. Its REST API backend includes an API server and controller manager. Enterprise adds image security hardening, two-factor authentication, vulnerability fixes and permission controls at platform, cluster and application levels. Enterprise is available by on-demand subscription or private deployment, with extensions available by subscription; pricing is available from sales. Its lightweight architecture can run with 2 CPU cores and 4 GB of memory.