# kubernetes/kops

Kubernetes Operations (kOps) - Production Grade k8s Installation, Upgrades and Management

Repository: https://github.com/kubernetes/kops
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/kops
Homepage: https://kops.sigs.k8s.io/
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: kubernetes, go, cncf, containers, kops
Last push: 2026-08-26T20:17:48+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 98/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 96, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3719, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 25, "gap_med": 20, "n_releases_24m": 22}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 16669, forks 4717 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:16.968480+00:00)

## What it is
kOps (Kubernetes Operations) is a CLI tool for creating, upgrading, and maintaining production-grade, highly available Kubernetes clusters, including provisioning the underlying cloud infrastructure. It acts like 'kubectl for clusters', officially supporting AWS and GCP with beta support for DigitalOcean, Hetzner, and OpenStack, and alpha support for Azure.

## Use cases
- create a production-grade kubernetes cluster on aws
- upgrade a kubernetes cluster to a new minor version
- provision highly available k8s clusters with terraform output
- manage kubernetes cluster lifecycle from the command line
- set up a kubernetes cluster on hetzner or openstack
- generate terraform for kubernetes infrastructure
- configure kubernetes networking with cilium or calico

## When to choose
- you need production-grade, highly available self-managed Kubernetes clusters on AWS or GCP
- you want cluster lifecycle management including upgrades and infrastructure provisioning in one tool
- you want to generate Terraform from cluster manifests
- you need multi-cloud support including DigitalOcean, Hetzner, OpenStack, or Azure

## When to avoid
- you only need a managed Kubernetes service like EKS, GKE, or AKS
- you want a lightweight local development cluster (use kind or minikube instead)
- you need a general-purpose infrastructure provisioning tool beyond Kubernetes (use Terraform directly)
- you require a cloud provider not on the supported list

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: deployment, infrastructure-as-code, container-orchestration, cli
- domain: cloud-computing, infrastructure-as-code, self-hosted
- platform: cli, windows, go, cloud
- tags: kubernetes, cluster-management, terraform-generation, aws, gcp, cncf, provisioning, containers, devops, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- kubernetes/kops (main) score 98

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:16.968480+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T17:04:48.410155+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/kubernetes/kops (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:16.968480+00:00, sha 39b26900474c)
  - homepage: https://kops.sigs.k8s.io/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:02:13.304685+00:00, sha 6e0ae82c17e6)
  - site_page: https://kops.sigs.k8s.io/getting_started/install (fetched 2026-08-29T08:02:13.307213+00:00, sha 1ab124db6c14)
  - site_page: https://kops.sigs.k8s.io/contributing/documentation (fetched 2026-08-29T08:02:13.313213+00:00, sha 9431583c3e4f)
  - site_page: https://kops.sigs.k8s.io/releases/1.37-NOTES (fetched 2026-08-29T08:02:13.309031+00:00, sha c5bf7b80aa11)
  - site_page: https://kops.sigs.k8s.io/welcome/releases (fetched 2026-08-29T08:02:13.311282+00:00, sha 4ea6011ad071)
  - site_page: https://kops.sigs.k8s.io/releases/1.36-NOTES (fetched 2026-08-29T08:02:13.314927+00:00, sha edd8a582ff5d)
  - site_page: https://kops.sigs.k8s.io/releases/1.35-NOTES (fetched 2026-08-29T08:02:13.317530+00:00, sha 4a1764b21537)
  - site_page: https://kops.sigs.k8s.io/releases/1.34-NOTES (fetched 2026-08-29T08:02:13.319393+00:00, sha 0d94a467a5b6)
  - site_page: https://kops.sigs.k8s.io/releases/1.33-NOTES (fetched 2026-08-29T08:02:13.321298+00:00, sha 305272efa257)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.