Klustercost vs Krossboard

Klustercost gives Kubernetes users cost visibility by workload, monitoring pods and assigning prices to nodes. Its Go-based observers use Kubernetes informers and Prometheus to track pods, nodes and namespaces in real time. Pod and node data is stored in PostgreSQL every 10 minutes, and nodes are enriched with hourly virtual-machine costs from Azure retail pricing APIs.

Users can ask questions in plain English and receive natural-language answers with structured JSON; the site describes these AI queries as read-only. Access options include WhatsApp, Teams, Slack, Power BI, an HTTP API and MCP protocol. A Helm chart deploys the monitor, pricing service, database and optional AI layer. The project is open source under GPL-3.0 and its plan is free. Setup requires a running Kubernetes cluster, Helm 3.x, reachable Prometheus, Metrics Server and a StorageClass. Azure cost enrichment is supported; AWS and GCP support are planned. Natural-language queries through the MCP assistant require an OpenAI API key.

Krossboard tracks Kubernetes cluster usage to help teams allocate costs and plan capacity. It can analyze multiple clusters configured through one or more KUBECONFIG files, with analytics for namespaces, nodes, and clusters. Views can be consolidated across minutes, hours, days, and months, and backing analytics data can be exported as CSV. Cost forecasting is available, with allocation at namespace granularity. The Kubernetes Operator deploys and manages Krossboard instances as pods; each deployed instance provides a UI and REST API. Krossboard is offered for web, API, and self-hosted use. Its free plan costs nothing and includes unlimited clusters, core analytics, and CSV export. It does not include discovery of managed AKS, EKS, or GKE clusters or support. Enterprise plans add managed-cluster discovery; Enterprise includes one year of access to maintained versions for bug and security fixes, while Enterprise Advanced offers up to three years and specific onboarding support. The maker is 2Alchemists SAS, based in Toulouse, France.