head to head · open source
kubernetes vs crossplane
kubernetes has 127,843 GitHub stars, 44,692 forks, 3,072 open issues and last shipped today. crossplane has 12,089 stars, 1,265 forks, 194 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kubernetes leads on adoption by 958% (127,843 vs 12,089 stars). kubernetes is written in Go under Apache-2.0; crossplane is written in Go under Apache-2.0. kubernetes has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, crossplane 10%. kubernetes was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (cncf, containers, kubernetes), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| kubernetes | crossplane | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 128K | ★ 12K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 45K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick kubernetes if
- You weight community size — 128K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick crossplane if
- You want the crossplane feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and crossplane fits your workflow better
About kubernetes
Kubernetes (K8s) is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed system for managing containerized applications across multiple hosts, hosted by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and aimed at teams who deploy, maintain and scale container packaged and microservices oriented workloads in production.
read the full kubernetes overview →
About crossplane
Crossplane is a Cloud Native Computing Foundation framework for building cloud native control planes without writing code, aimed at platform and infrastructure teams that run Kubernetes and need to orchestrate applications and infrastructure across clouds through declarative APIs.
read the full crossplane overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kubernetes or crossplane more popular?
kubernetes has 127,843 GitHub stars and crossplane has 12,089. kubernetes has the larger community by that measure.
Are kubernetes and crossplane free?
Both are open source. kubernetes is licensed under Apache-2.0 and crossplane under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kubernetes and crossplane?
kubernetes is written in Go and crossplane in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, kubernetes or crossplane?
Choose kubernetes if you want the larger community (127,843 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose crossplane if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.