Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform vs KubeSphere
Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform
kubermatic.com
KubeSphere
kubesphere.ioSide by side
| Figure | Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform | KubeSphere |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $65/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 8 |
| Spec score · Kubernetes Management Platforms | 7.9 (#11) | 8.9 (#1) |
| Spec score · Container Orchestration Software | 7.9 (#12) | 8.9 (#1) |
| Spec score · Multi-Cloud Management Software | 7.9 (#11) | 8.9 (#3) |
| Spec score · Container Management Software | 7.9 (#14) | 9.0 (#1) |
| Headquarters | Hamburg, Germany | Beijing, China |
| Integrations | The vendor lists native support for Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki, and says teams can connect their preferred CI/CD system, Terraform provider, or Ansible playbooks. | Official materials identify integrations or ecosystem collaboration with Jenkins, Grafana, Loki, Higress, KubeKey, OpenELB, KubeEye, Fluent Operator, and OpenFunction. |
| Purpose | KKP automates deployment, scaling, and lifecycle management of Kubernetes clusters across hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, on-premises, and edge environments. | KubeSphere is a Kubernetes-based distributed operating system for cloud-native application management with a plug-and-play architecture for third-party applications. |
| Security | KKP includes multi-tenancy, role-based access control, cluster authentication and authorization, and policy blueprints and presets. | The Enterprise kernel adds security features including image security hardening, two-factor authentication and vulnerability fixes. |
| Support | Kubermatic Kubernetes Subscription offers upstream Kubernetes support with 24x7 business-critical response and service-level agreements. | KubeSphere Enterprise offers one-stop professional technical support services. |
| System requirements | The installation guide requires a Kubernetes master cluster and documents downloading installer archives for Linux, macOS, and Windows. | For each node, the v4.1.3 documentation lists minimum 2 CPU cores, 4 GB memory, and 40 GB disk; production guidance is 8 cores, 16 GB memory, and 200 GB disk. |
Plans
Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform
- Community Edition (CE)Free
- Enterprise Edition (EE)Priced on request
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
Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform
Kubermatic Kubernetes Platform (KKP) automates Kubernetes cluster deployment, scaling, and lifecycle management across hybrid cloud, multi-cloud, on-premises, and edge environments. Its customer-managed control plane can manage thousands of clusters across more than 20 public cloud providers and on-premises environments. Development teams can provision and deploy environments through a self-service portal. KKP supports cluster upgrades and rollbacks, plus an add-on controller for software, configuration, and policy. KubeVirt support brings virtual machines and containerized workloads into one interface. Security controls include multi-tenancy, role-based access, cluster authentication and authorization, and policy blueprints and presets. Prometheus, Grafana, and Loki have native support; teams can also connect CI/CD systems, Terraform providers, or Ansible playbooks. KKP is self-hosted and installed with the Kubermatic Installer, and requires a Kubernetes master cluster. Community Edition costs nothing under Apache License 2.0. Enterprise Edition has no listed price and bills worker-node vCPU and memory on a consumption basis; master cluster nodes are excluded.
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.