If you're looking for an alternative to Lens or OpenLens, Aptakube is a great option. Aptakube is a fast, lightweight and beautiful Kubernetes GUI that works on any platform.
From a feature point of view, Aptakube and Lens are somewhat similar. Aptakube has an advantage on being multi-cluster, richer resource views and ability to compare resources from the same, or different clusters.
Our customers have reported that Aptakube is many times faster than Lens, easier to use, as well as being much smaller in size and use less resources. Aptakube also doesn't require cloud authentication, nor uses any cloud services.
“Fast, slick UI that outperforms Lens and k9s. Each view is well designed and shows you everything at a glance. Works seamlessly with Teleport (and Okta) as well. Aptakube is a breath of fresh air in a landscape of increasingly bloated apps — I can't recommend it highly enough!”
Here's a quick comparison between Aptakube and Lens.
| Aptakube vs Lens | Aptakube | Lens |
|---|---|---|
| Tech Stack | Tauri, Rust and Solid | Electron, Node.js and React |
| User Interface | GUI (Graphical) | GUI (Graphical) |
| Time to Interactive1Time taken to get past the splash screen | ⚡️ Instantly | ~6 seconds |
| App Disk Size1 | 39 MB | 1.93 GB |
| Memory Usage @ Home1How much memory was used when the app started | 98 MB | 359 MB |
| Memory Usage @ 2000 Pods1How much memory was used to list 2000 pods | 254 MB | 617 MB |
| Multi-clusterAbility to view objects from multiple clusters simultaneously | No | |
| Aggregated Log ViewerView logs from multiple pods at once | No | |
| Resource MetricsCPU and Memory usage metrics via standard Kubernetes Metrics API | ||
| Resource DiffCompare two resources side by side | No | |
| Cloud AuthenticationWhether you need to login to use the app | No | Requires Lens ID |
| Licensing Model | Commercial Subscription | Commercial Subscription |
| Pricing | $59/seat/year | $300/seat/year |
| Open Source | No | No |
- Tested on a MacBook Pro 16" 2021 M1 Pro 16GB, running macOS Sequoia 15
- Aptakube 1.7.11
- Lens 2024.9.300059-latest
If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at hello@aptakube.com.