| Description | Open-source tool for monitoring cost, resource allocation, and utilization data in Kubernetes | Always-free, includes functionality of OpenCost plus better scaling and savings options | Includes all features of Kubecost Free, plus: access control with SSO/SAML, custom pricing, advanced integrations, long-term data storage, and expert technical support |
| Best for | Small clusters, simple command-line reporting needs | Larger clusters with limited scale needs, including ETL and dashboards | For larger teams and companies with more larger-scale or complex infrastructure, and those who need cross-cluster aggregation, increased data retention (or data egress to third-party BI tooling), customized security policies, and/or hands-on implementation |
| Price | Free | Free | Contact us |
| Clusters supported | Unlimited (no unified view; best for smaller clusters) | Unlimited (no unified view; best for smaller clusters) | Unified multi-cluster view |
| Number of cores | Unlimited | 250 | Unlimited |
| Deployment | Deployed as a pod. Prometheus and kube-state-metrics dependencies need to be managed separately. | Deployed using Helm. Bundled with Prometheus and Grafana dependencies. | Deployed using Helm. Bundled with Prometheus and Grafana dependencies. |
| Metric retention | Limited by Prometheus environment | 15 days | Unlimited (Long term storage supported via object storage.) |
| Support | Built and supported by community users. Interact with our vibrant community to quickly and easily learn, build, and deploy OpenCost for Kubernetes cost monitoring! | Ticket-based support dedicated to resolving issues quickly and efficiently. Available 9:00 AM - 8:00 PM EST | Ticket-based support dedicated to resolving issues quickly and efficiently. Available 9:00 AM - 8:00 PM EST |
