Detailed comparison across 10 dimensions
Winner: Portainer
Portainer clearly comes out ahead of Kubecost on Staquest's weighted six-dimension score. Both offer a free tier. Paid plans start at $449/mo for Kubecost and $99/mo for Portainer.
| Overview | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | hybrid | hybrid |
| Company | Stackwatch | Portainer.io |
| Free Tier | ||
| Has API | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Learning Curve | - | - |
| Integration | - | - |
| Trending | Stable | Stable |
| GitHub Stars | - | - |
| Industries | DevelopmentEducation & EdTechAI & Machine LearningSaaS & Cloud | DevelopmentSaaS & Cloud |
| Categories | devops | devops |
| Website | Visit | Visit |
Portainer
open source
custom
custom
| Feature | kubecost | portainer |
|---|---|---|
| Community Support | ||
| Dedicated Support | ||
| Sso | ||
| 15-Day Metric Retention | ||
| Advanced Security | ||
| Advanced Reporting | ||
| Business Edition Features | ||
| Cost Allocation | ||
| Business Support | ||
| Cost Reconciliation | ||
| Commercial Use | ||
| Cost Savings Insights & Actions | ||
| Non-Commercial Use | ||
| Enterprise Integrations | ||
| Open Source Container Management | ||
| Event Auditing | ||
| Sla | ||
| Everything In Business | ||
| Starts At 5 Nodes | ||
| Everything In Free | ||
| Up To 15 Nodes | ||
| Extended Metric Retention | ||
| Up To 3 Nodes | ||
| Multi-Cloud Or Hybrid-Cloud Support | ||
| Rbac |
Showing 25 of 25 features
Dashes mean the feature isn't listed in our data. The tool may still support it.
On Staquest's weighted six-dimension scoring, Portainer comes out ahead overall, though Kubecost can be the better fit depending on your priorities — see the dimension-by-dimension breakdown above.
Kubecost's paid plans start at $449/mo and Portainer's start at $99/mo, so Portainer is the lower entry price. Check the pricing comparison for higher tiers and per-seat costs.
Both Kubecost and Portainer offer a free tier.
Portainer scores higher on pricing value in Staquest's analysis. It is the highest-weighted dimension in this comparison.
