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Kubecost vs nOps

Struggling with high Kubecost bills, unpredictable pricing, stagnant feature sets and limited visibility beyond Kubernetes?

nOps delivers more visibility than Kubecost across your entire cloud — plus forecasting, anomaly detection, budgeting, tracking, benchmarking, alerts, integrations, intelligent workload provisioning and beyond. Get more value for a fraction of the cost.

Why Teams are moving beyond Kubecost

Slow Setup & Heavy Infrastructure

Kubecost requires complex in-cluster servers that slow down your environment

Lightweight Agent & One-Line Install

No in-cluster servers, minimal footprints,
instant deployment

Unpredictable CPU-Based Pricing

Costs fluctuate wildly based on CPU usage, making budgeting impossible

Fixed & Predictable Pricing

Transparent, flat-rate pricing that scales
with your needs

Inaccurate Cost Estimations

Estimates are often imprecise and do not reflect discounts, credits, EDP/PPA, etc.

Accurate Cluster Costs

Container-level precision with 99.9%
accuracy guarantee

Why Choose nOps Over Kubecost

Feature nOps Kubecost
EKS COST OPTIMIZATION
Deployment architecture
Lightweight, one-line agent; no in-cluster server
Heavy in-cluster server; resource intensive*
(only for Enterprise Self-hosted)
Setup time
<5 Minutes
Takes anywhere from 30 minutes to hours
Pricing model
Fixed, predictable, unlimited clusters can be configured
CPU-based, unpredictable; higher costs post-IBM acquisition, changes as you add more clusters
Container rightsizing automation
Fully automated with policies
Manual or semi-automated
Node rightsizing configuration automation
(Karpenter & Cluster Autoscaler)
Automated — with granular hourly visibility and trend analysis
Manual only
Container Rightsizing Reports
Full reporting with actionable container insights. Automated delivery to email, Slack, etc.
Limited reporting
EKS COST VISIBILITY
Free EKS benchmarking
Cluster, node, container, EC2 cost breakdown, 30-day trend analysis
Not included
Budgets & targets
Supported down to container level — track costs per pod, namespace, cluster or any other kubernetes dimension; real-time budgeting with alerts
Limited — mostly higher-level only
COGS tracking
Full support; true unit economics visibility and accounting down to container level
Not supported
Forecasting
Supported on any dimension/metric including all EKS filters; can forecast namespace, container, pod etc.
Basic only
Anomaly detection
Yes — powered by Clara AI
No true AI-powered detection
Global dashboards & reports
Prebuilt global dashboards and reports—no manual filtering needed. Ready to use as soon as you onboard clusters, with global reports for top spending services across AWS, GCP, Azure, and OpenAI, plus an extensive, detailed dashboard for EKS.
Requires manual setup
Integrations
Slack (alerts and notifications), Jira (automated tickets), Visibility for Datadog, Snowflake, OpenAI, Azure, GCP, MongoDB, SaaS tools
Slack only, limited via Webhook
Container rightsizing summary & policies
Detailed summary with per-container recommendations; policy-based automations
Basic recommendations, no automation
Cost Allocation
Cost allocation granularity
Down to pod, container, namespace, label; custom showback and chargeback rules
Namespace and label; less granular
Showback and chargeback programs
Full support with customizable allocation strategies
Limited
Custom showback rules
Even, usage-based, or custom percentage allocations; flexible and granular including custom tags/values
Limited flexibility
Credits & discounts allocation
Accurate down to container and pod; 100% CUR matched
Less granular; often inaccurate
Orphaned PVC & workload cleanup
Automated detection and cleanup
Available
Page load performance
Fast, optimized dashboards
Often slow, heavy queries
Node usage patterns & efficiency tracking
Deep insights with real-time efficiency scores and waste trends
Limited or manual
Commitment Management
Commitment Management (RI/SP/Spot)
Fully automated orchestration
Not supported
Commitment tracking (EDP, SaaS)
Burn-down tracking for EDP, SaaS tools, RIs, SPs
Not supported
Burn-down tracker for commitments
Yes — EDP, SaaS, RIs, SPs
No
Credit and discount visibility
Accurate, down to pod/container
Less granular and often approximate
One-line EKS agent install
Yes, no additional AWS config required
In-cluster server required
Orphaned resource savings automation
Yes, included
No

EKS & Beyond: Advanced Features

Cost Allocations & Showbacks

Allocate costs down to the pod, container and label automatically with metadata.

  • Custom showback rules: even, usage-based, or custom % splits.
  • 100% AWS CUR-aligned; includes credits and discounts.
  • Fairly split costs across teams and products.

Benchmarking

Understand exactly where you stand today and identify optimization opportunities before taking action.

  • Efficiency scoring for cluster, node, container, and EC2 levels.
  • Cost breakdown across CPU, memory, storage, and network..

100% Cost Match Accuracy

Trust your numbers — every dollar accounted for and aligned perfectly with your AWS bill.

  • 100% CUR match accuracy.
  • Proper allocation of credits, Savings Plans, and Reserved Instance discounts.
  • Finance-ready data for reporting and audits.

Container Rightsizing

Automate rightsizing with smart recommendations and policy-driven automation.

  • Track usage patterns per pod over the last 30 days.
  • Monitor node pool (Karpenter/ Cluster Autoscaler) utilization hourly for precise insights and automate configurations with FinOps AI agent

Monitor Cluster Efficiency

Track operational excellence continuously, with clear metrics that help teams improve over time.

  • Monitor waste and underutilization trends.
  • Real-time visibility into usage patterns and anomalies.
  • Identify high-impact optimization opportunities at a glance.

Forecast, Budget, Target, Anomalies

Predict, plan, and control your cloud spend and resource efficiency with confidence.

  • Forecast spend and efficiency across any dimension.
  • Set and track budgets and targets down to container level, with alerts
  • AI-powered anomaly detection across node, pod, and containers

Ready to Experience Advance Optimization?

Get Started in Minutes

Sign up to nOps

Install our lightweight agent in your EKS cluster

Gain visibility into real-time and historical efficiency

Start Allocating your costs, Monitor the clusters, anomaly detection and forecasting

Free - No credit card required - Setup in under 5 minutes

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes nOps different from Kubecost?
nOps is more than just a cost visibility tool — it’s a full optimization platform. We offer real automation for container, node, and soon ASG rightsizing, plus automated commitment management (RI/SP/Spot), advanced forecasting, anomaly detection, and precise cost allocation down to container and pod levels. And unlike Kubecost, we use a lightweight agent with no heavy in-cluster servers and have predictable, fixed pricing.
No. nOps uses a lightweight, one-line agent install that does not run a separate in-cluster server. This means no extra resource drain, no performance slowdowns, and lower operational risk.
100% accurate and fully aligned with AWS Cost and Usage Reports (CUR). We also allocate credits and discounts down to the container level.
nOps pricing is fixed and based on your AWS monthly recurring revenue (MRR). There are no surprise CPU-based or usage-based fees, unlike Kubecost’s CPU-based model which can become unpredictable and costly.
Yes! You can set and track budgets, targets, and COGS all the way down to the container level. This helps finance and engineering teams align on true costs and profitability.
Yes. We accurately allocate AWS credits and discounts (RI, SP, etc.) down to pods and containers, so you can see exactly how they offset costs for each workload or team.
Absolutely. You can forecast spend, efficiency, and commitment utilization across any dimension, including cluster, node, container, and integrated third-party tools (e.g., Datadog, Snowflake).

nOps integrates seamlessly with Slack, Jira (for automated tickets and alerts), Datadog, Snowflake, OpenAI, Azure, and GCP — supporting your entire FinOps and engineering workflow.

Yes! We provide a free 30-day benchmark that shows efficiency scores, rightsizing opportunities, commitment utilization, and potential savings — all without making any changes to your environment.

Yes! We can automatically detect and remove orphaned PVCs (Persistent Volume Claims) and workloads, helping you reduce hidden waste and unexpected storage costs.

Just minutes. Unlike Kubecost’s 4-week trial setup, nOps is fast and simple — install our one-line agent, connect your account, and start seeing actionable insights immediately.
nOps manages $2B+ in annual AWS spend for innovative brands, from startups to enterprises, saving them 50%+ autonomously.

Customer Stories

Integrations

No need to juggle multiple tools — instantly view and allocate all of your combined cloud costs in one single pane of glass

A Recognized Leader in Cloud Management

Advanced technology partner AWS, G2 4.8 rating, FinOps Foundation member and many more