Kubecost

Kubecost breaks Kubernetes spend down to namespace, pod, and label level in real time.

Kubecost reads kube-state-metrics, cAdvisor, and cloud billing to attribute Kubernetes spend at namespace, pod, and label granularity, then runs ML rightsizing on 30-day P95 usage to recommend smaller requests and limits. Anomaly detection flags cost spikes in real time. The open-core distribution makes the free self-hosted version actually useful for single-cluster cost visibility.

Who it's for. Any team running Kubernetes that needs to answer how much a namespace costs without waiting for a monthly cloud bill. The case: a staging namespace consumes 40 percent of cluster compute because someone provisioned production-sized replicas, Kubecost recommends a 60 percent CPU request cut based on 30-day P95, and the platform team applies it for $2K monthly savings.

Tradeoffs. Kubernetes only; non-K8s spend (RDS, S3, CloudFront) needs CloudZero or Vantage. Acquired by IBM via Apptio, so the long-term open-source posture is worth watching. Multi-cluster, SSO, and long-term retention require Enterprise (sales-only).

Compare: CloudZero, Vantage, OpenCost, Apptio Cloudability