head to head · open source
portainer vs kubevious
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars, 2,906 forks, 757 open issues and last shipped yesterday. kubevious has 1,707 stars, 96 forks, 17 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. portainer leads on adoption by 2,157% (38,524 vs 1,707 stars). portainer is written in TypeScript under Zlib; kubevious is written in various languages under Apache-2.0. portainer has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, kubevious 6%. portainer was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (docker, 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 | kubevious | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 1.7K |
| License | Zlib | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | — |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-06-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.9K | ⑂ 96 |
| 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 kubevious if
- You want the kubevious feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- You evaluated both and kubevious fits your workflow better
About portainer
Portainer Community Edition is a free, lightweight container management UI for Docker, Swarm, Podman, Kubernetes, and ACI environments, distributed under the zlib licence and aimed at homelab operators, hobbyists, students, and anyone experimenting with containers on their own hardware.
read the full portainer overview →
About kubevious
Kubevious is a suite of app centric assurance, validation, and introspection products for Kubernetes, and it lives in the cloud native ecosystem of containers, configuration, dashboards, and monitoring. The project is positioned as a way to run Kubernetes applications without disasters and costly outages.
read the full kubevious overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is portainer or kubevious more popular?
portainer has 38,524 GitHub stars and kubevious has 1,707. portainer has the larger community by that measure.
Are portainer and kubevious free?
Both are open source. portainer is licensed under Zlib and kubevious under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between portainer and kubevious?
portainer is written in TypeScript and kubevious in various languages. 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 kubevious?
Choose portainer if you want the larger community (38,524 stars) or its Zlib licence terms. Choose kubevious if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.