head to head · open source
portainer vs freelens
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars, 2,934 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. freelens has 5,769 stars, 357 forks, 223 open issues and last shipped yesterday. portainer leads on adoption by 572% (38,767 vs 5,769 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; freelens is written in TypeScript under MIT. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, freelens 6%. freelens was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (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
| portainer | freelens | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 5.8K |
| License | Zlib | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 357 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick portainer if
- You weight community size — 39K stars and counting
- You want the Zlib license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick freelens if
- You want the freelens feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and freelens fits your workflow better
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments. It is provided as is, at no cost, for the convenience of homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware. Portainer Business Edition builds on the same open source base and adds the features, hardening, and commercial support that production and enterprise environments require (RBAC, GitOps, edge management, audit, SSO, and more). Find out more about Portainer Business Edition features Take3 – get 3 free nodes of Portainer…
read the full portainer overview →
About freelens
Freelens Freelens is a free and open source user interface designed for managing Kubernetes clusters. It provides a standalone application compatible with macOS, Windows, and Linux operating systems, making it accessible to a wide range of users. The application aims to simplify the complexities of Kubernetes management by offering an intuitive and user friendly interface. Requirements Kubernetes 1.22 or later. Older clusters fall back to the bundled kubectl , which may not work correctly; a different one can be set in Preferences. Downloads See the releases page and download the right package for your system…
read the full freelens overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or freelens more popular?
portainer has 38,767 GitHub stars and freelens has 5,769. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and freelens free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and freelens under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and freelens?
portainer is written in TypeScript and freelens in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, portainer or freelens?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,767 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose freelens if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.