KubeSphere vs Upbound
KubeSphere
kubesphere.ioUpbound
upbound.ioSide by side
| Figure | KubeSphere | Upbound |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $65/mo | $1,000/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 8 | 5 |
| Spec score · Platform Engineering Software | 9.1 (#1) | 8.7 (#4) |
| Documentation depth | The documentation includes quick starts, installation and upgrade procedures, air-gapped deployment, high availability, extensions, role management, DevOps pipelines, App Store, service mesh, federation, observability, FAQs, API reference, and release notes. | Documentation includes guides, manuals, CLI how-tos, architecture, deployment prerequisites, IAM, production hardening and API references. |
| Headquarters | Beijing, China | Upbound states that it is headquartered in San Mateo, California. |
| Integrations | Official materials identify integrations or ecosystem collaboration with Jenkins, Grafana, Loki, Higress, KubeKey, OpenELB, KubeEye, Fluent Operator, and OpenFunction. | Upbound Official Providers are pre-built enterprise-supported integrations for AWS, Azure, and GCP. |
| Limit: documentation and support | G2 reviewers describe documentation as complex, report insufficient resources for solving issues, and say users need transition knowledge to get started. | A Reddit discussion reports that some users find Upbound documentation weak and professional support slow. |
| Purpose | KubeSphere is a Kubernetes-based distributed operating system for cloud-native application management with a plug-and-play architecture for third-party applications. | Upbound provides a platform for infrastructure and platform teams to build, run, and govern control planes across their infrastructure estate. |
| Rating on G2 | 4.3 out of 5 from 12 reviews. | 4.0 out of 5 from 1 review |
| Security | The Enterprise kernel adds security features including image security hardening, two-factor authentication and vulnerability fixes. | Upbound states that it meets SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27017:2015, ISO 27018:2019, and ISO 27001:2022 certifications. |
| Self-hosting | KubeSphere can be installed on public cloud, private cloud, bare metal, or existing Kubernetes clusters, including air-gapped environments. | Upbound supports self-hosted Spaces, Console and Hub, including fully air-gapped deployments in its v3 platform. |
| Support | KubeSphere Enterprise offers one-stop professional technical support services. | The Standard tier includes Basic Support, Enterprise includes Enterprise Support, and Business Critical includes Dedicated Support. |
| What it does | KubeSphere is a Kubernetes-based distributed operating system and multi-tenant container platform for managing cloud-native applications. | Upbound provides Kubernetes and Crossplane based control planes that provision, operate and govern infrastructure across clouds and services through programmable APIs. |
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
Upbound
- CommunityFree
- CommunityFree
- Standard$1,000 a month
- Business CriticalPriced on request
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
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.
Upbound
Upbound provides infrastructure and platform teams with tools to build, run, and govern control planes across infrastructure estates. Its framework exposes resources across clouds, vendors, and systems through a programmable API and manages them toward a defined desired state. Upbound Insights offers a live, searchable view of resources across connected control planes. Development tools include control plane projects, IDE integration, unit and end-to-end testing, simulations, and instant development control planes. Official Providers are enterprise-supported integrations for AWS, Azure, and GCP. The marketplace handles provider, function, and configuration packages, with public and private listings, repository management, and package documentation. Official Packages include SBOMs, CVE summaries, and SLSA Level 2 signing. Upbound says it meets SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27017:2015, ISO 27018:2019, and ISO 27001:2022 certifications. The platform supports full self-hosting, including air-gapped deployments. Pricing is consumption-based, with plan minimums and charges per resource per hour. Community is free; Standard starts at $1,000 a month. Qualified prospects can receive guided trials and proof-of-value projects for Enterprise and Business Critical features.