Klustercost vs KubeAdapt

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.

KubeAdapt monitors Kubernetes costs across clusters, namespaces, workloads, pods and teams, and provides cost forecasting, budget alerts and rightsizing recommendations. It works with AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, OpenShift and bare-metal Kubernetes. The agent is installed with one Helm chart; the site estimates installation takes about five minutes. Rightsizing guidance gives per-container CPU and memory recommendations as YAML for GitOps workflows, with OOM-aware, bursty-CPU and replica-aware guardrails. KubeAdapt does not apply recommended changes. Its agent has read-only Kubernetes permissions, limited to list and watch, and the company says it does not collect Secrets, ConfigMaps, environment variables, container logs or network traffic. Aggregated payloads are signed in-cluster and sent using TLS 1.3 with mutual TLS. Alerts for budgets, cost spikes and new workloads can go to Slack, email or webhooks. A read-only REST API exposes cost, capacity and resource data. The free plan covers the first 100 vCPU across an account. Paid rates range from $0.60 a month to $1.99 a month per billable vCPU, depending on tier; qualifying startups have a $0.60 a month rate.