head to head · open source
kubernetes vs itamae
kubernetes has 127,843 GitHub stars, 44,692 forks, 3,072 open issues and last shipped today. itamae has 1,132 stars, 118 forks, 38 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. kubernetes leads on adoption by 11,194% (127,843 vs 1,132 stars). kubernetes is written in Go under Apache-2.0; itamae is written in Ruby under MIT. kubernetes has attracted 35% as many forks as stars, itamae 10%. kubernetes was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | itamae | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 128K | ★ 1.1K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 45K | ⑂ 118 |
| 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 itamae if
- You want the itamae feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and itamae 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 itamae
Itamae is a simple, lightweight configuration management tool written in Ruby, inspired by Chef, and intended for developers and operators who want to describe machine state in recipe files and apply those recipes either to a local machine or to remote hosts over SSH.
read the full itamae overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is kubernetes or itamae more popular?
kubernetes has 127,843 GitHub stars and itamae has 1,132. kubernetes has the larger community by that measure.
Are kubernetes and itamae free?
Both are open source. kubernetes is licensed under Apache-2.0 and itamae under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between kubernetes and itamae?
kubernetes is written in Go and itamae in Ruby. 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 itamae?
Choose kubernetes if you want the larger community (127,843 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose itamae if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.