OpenCost vs PerfectScale
OpenCost
opencost.io
PerfectScale
perfectscale.ioSide by side
| Figure | OpenCost | PerfectScale |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 3 |
| Spec score · Kubernetes Cost Management Software | 7.8 (#7) | 7.7 (#10) |
| Deployment | OpenCost requires a Kubernetes cluster and Prometheus; the project recommends Helm for full functionality. | PerfectScale is available as managed SaaS or on-premise self-hosted software, and its agent can be deployed with Helm. |
| Purpose | OpenCost is a vendor-neutral open source project for measuring and allocating Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure costs. | PerfectScale continuously optimizes Kubernetes to reduce cloud costs while improving cluster performance and availability. |
| Support | The project directs users with questions to CNCF Slack’s #opencost channel or its support email. | PerfectScale documentation directs users to ask questions in its Slack community or contact support by email. |
Plans
In their own words
OpenCost
OpenCost is a vendor-neutral open source project for measuring and allocating Kubernetes and cloud infrastructure costs. It breaks down costs in real time to Kubernetes concepts and containers for showback, chargeback, and reporting. Allocation covers CPU, GPU, memory, load balancers, and persistent volumes, and it can monitor cloud resources outside Kubernetes. The included web UI visualizes Kubernetes allocations and related cloud costs. Its API provides real-time and historical Kubernetes cost reports using on-demand list prices and cloud provider cost and usage reports. Listed cloud providers include Alibaba, AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure, Open Telekom Cloud, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, OVHcloud, Scaleway, and STACKIT. Metrics and visualization integrations include Prometheus, Cortex, Thanos, Victoria Metrics, Grafana, and Grafana Cloud. OpenCost requires a Kubernetes cluster and Prometheus; Helm is recommended for full functionality. Cloud costs appear when provider billing data becomes available, usually several hours to 24 hours later, and on-demand pricing is not reconciled against billed actual costs. Cloud costs are not supported for on-premises clusters. OpenCost is free under Apache 2.0.
PerfectScale
PerfectScale optimizes Kubernetes workloads and nodes with the aim of reducing cloud costs while improving performance and availability. Podfit analyzes workload health and costs, recommends right-sizing and supports workload automation. Infrafit provides node utilization insights and recommendations for reducing idle capacity and selecting nodes. The platform prioritizes resilience risks and cost anomalies, with alerts available through Slack, Datadog, Microsoft Teams and PagerDuty. It supports cloud, hybrid, private-cloud and on-premises Kubernetes environments. Organizations can use managed SaaS or self-hosted software, and deploy the agent with Helm. The Free plan is free and covers up to 200 vCPU per month, with unlimited clusters, nodes and pods. Community users receive premium features such as automation during their first 30 days. The public API is a premium feature limited to paying Expert package customers. The pricing page displays SOC 2, GDPR and ISO 27001 credentials. PerfectScale describes DevOps, SRE and Platform Engineering teams as its audience; Expert and Advanced plan prices are by quote.