9 Best Kubernetes UI Management Tools

Containerization is a technology whose adoption has increased in the past decade. This is because it offers several features and benefits to the companies. Some features include Security Isolation, Portability, Resource Efficiency, Version Control and Rollbacks, Orchestration and Scalability etc. This technology has brought several tools such as Docker, Podman, OpenShift, Containerd, rkt (Rocket), LXC (Linux Containers), CRI-O, e.t.c into play.

Today, to become a system admin or DevOps engineer, you need to have a strong knowledge of managing containers. Kubernetes is one of the highly adopted tools for most companies. This is because it provides a lot of cool features and benefits that a lot of companies need in this era. These benefits include Security and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), Rolling Updates and Rollbacks, Container Health Monitoring, Service Discovery and Load Balancing, High Availability and Fault Tolerance, Efficient Resource Utilization, Automated Container Orchestration, Container Abstraction, Storage Orchestration, Multi-Cloud and Hybrid Cloud Support etc.

There are many CLI tools that can be used to manage Kubernetes. They include kubectl, minikube, kustomize, stern, k9s etc. These tools can be so thrilling only if you are familiar with the commands and the environment is not so big. Whenever the environment grows, you will find yourself in scenarios where you need a more advanced tool. This guide is here to help you identify the best UI tool that you can use to manage your Kubernetes cluster.

For Docker Engine only check out – Best UI Applications for Managing Docker Containers

Below is the list of the 9 Best Kubernetes UI Management Tools

1. Lens

Lens Desktop is a tool built on top of the Lens Core Desktop. The core is a library that is powered by React and Electron. The Lens Desktop app is a standalone app that can be installed on Mac, Linux and Windows systems. This application can really help you take full control of your Kubernetes cluster.

It offers the following features and benefits:

• Eliminating complexity: It helps remove the complexity involved when managing Kubernetes clusters. Here you can manage your cluster without having to memorize the kubectl commands.
• Real-Time Observability: This tool can help you get live statistics, events, and log streams.
• Run on Your Desktop: The standalone app can be run on your MacOS, Windows and Linux with a 1-minute install.
• Works with Any Kubernetes: The tool can be used on any Kubernetes distribution, i.e. EKS, AKS, GKE, Minikube, Rancher, k0s, k3s, OpenShift etc.
• Built on Open Source: Lens is open source with a vibrant community and is backed by Kubernetes and cloud-native ecosystem pioneers.

To install Lens Desktop, download the required package for your system from the Lens downloads page. You can also follow the steps illustrated here:

• How to install Lens

Once installed, you can use Lens to manage your cluster.

Analyze and identify vulnerabilities in the containers.

2. Meshery

Meshery identifies itself as the extensible Kubernetes manager. This is because it has 220+ built-in integrations with support for cloud-native infrastructure apps. This tool can integrate seamlessly with any CNCF project, existing tools and Kubernetes clusters. It allows users to enhance their monitoring, CI/CD and security. Its cloud-native approach allows users to easily incorporate it into their existing workflow with minimal effort.

The cool features associated with this tool are:

• Access the Cloud Native Patterns for Kubernetes: It allows you to access, design and manage all the cloud native infra using the design configurator.
• Operate with configuration best practices: Users are able to analyze configs by comparing them against the deployment and operational best practices using Meshery’s configuration validator.
• Manage data plane intelligence with WebAssembly filters: Users are able to load their own WebAssembly filters in Envoy-based service meshes.
• Context-Aware Policies For Applications: Enfore the configuration best practises by leveraging built-in relationships from code to Kubernetes.
• Simplify the process of Infrastructure Management: Meshery is here to streamline your Platform Engineering using GitOps and other extensions. Users are able to preview deployments, view changes pull request-to-pull request and get infrastructure snapshots within their PRs by connecting MeshMap to their GitHub repositories.
• Manage the performance of your infrastructure and its workloads: Meshry allows tracking of cloud-native performance from release to release. You can use performance profiles to track the historical performance of the workloads, get to understand the behavioral changes etc.

Mesheryctl can be installed using a number of ways. Below are some of them:

• Using Bash on Mac/Linux

##On Kubernetes
curl -L https://meshery.io/install | PLATFORM=kubernetes bash -

##On Docker
curl -L https://meshery.io/install | PLATFORM=docker bash -

• Using Brew:

brew install mesheryctl

• Using Scoop:

scoop bucket add mesheryctl https://github.com/layer5io/scoop-bucket.git
scoop install mesheryctl

You can also download and install it directly from the Github release page

Once Mesheryctl has been installed, you can start it using the commands:

mesheryctl system context create k8s --platform kubernetes --set
mesheryctl system start

Sample Output:

....
meshery-meshery-1     | time="2023-10-28T10:06:28Z" level=info msg="Meshery Server listening on: 9081" app=meshery
meshery-meshery-1     | time="2023-10-28T10:06:30Z" level=info msg="extracting Applications from /home/appuser/.meshery/content/applications" app=meshery
meshery-meshery-1     | time="2023-10-28T10:06:30Z" level=info msg="seeding sample Applications" app=meshery

For more, see this guide:

• How to Install and Use Meshery

Now login to the web UI and manage the infra on the specified port

Select the provider then log in to Meshery

You can then connect to your Kubernetes cluster by providing the kubeconfig file:

Once connected, continue and manage your infra as desired:

3. Portainer

Portainer is an open-source tool developed by portainer.io to accelerate container adoption around the globe. This tool provides a simple yet versatile method to manage containers. By doing so, it is able to simplify the secure adoption of containers with remarkable speed.

Portainer offers a lot of features and benefits. They include:

• Ability to deploy even the most complex apps in seconds.
• Monitor the memory and CPU usage.
• Troubleshoot and monitor apps, volumes, and configurations in a few clicks.
• Intuitive Kubernetes GUI allows users/teams to speed up learning.
• It has the ability to convert the docker-compose format file to YAML compatible with k8s.
• The ability to set up RBAC for your team to define user access to each cluster.
• Deploy load-balanced or proxied applications easily.
• Easily configure and manage GitOps automation

To install Portainer, follow the aid provided in the guide below:

• How to install and use Portainer

Now you can use the Portainer web UI to manage your Kubernetes cluster

4. Headlamp

Headlamp provides an easy and extensible Kubernetes UI. This tool was mainly created to serve as a Kubernetes web UI that has the traditional functionality of other web UIs/dashboards available.

Headlamp provides several features that include:

• Clean and modern UI: This is excellent for viewing Kubernetes objects. The dashboard offers a mix of metrics and lists of objects on the pages, and I appreciate having different ways to parse the state of the cluster visually.
• Cluster View: Users are able to view metrics straight from the Headlamo UI without making additional settings. The cluster view feature displays basic metrics and the list of events recently performed.
• Simple Installation: It can be easily installed in the cluster or as a desktop app. It is supported on Mac, Linux and Windows systems.
• Read-write/interactive: It offers a read-write interface to the objects in your Kubernetes cluster. By clicking on an object, users are taken to the page with an overview of its state and make cluster management easier.
• Highly extensive: It comes with a plugin system to enable vendors to build and deploy Headlamp with extra functionality without having to maintain a fork of the project.

To install Headlamp, follow the aid provided here:

• How to install Use Headlamp Kubernetes Web UI

You can then manage your Kubernetes cluster as shown:

5. Kubenav

Kubenav is one of the best tools that can enable you navigate through your Kubernetes cluster right in your pocket. This is a mobile and desktop app that can be used to manage your Kubernetes cluster and get an overview of all the resources in the cluster.

Kubenav has a lot of features. Some of them include:

• Desktop and Mobile app: It provides a similar experience on both the mobile and desktop app with 100% ability to share code.
• Manage Resources: It offers the ability to manage all the major resources on Kubernetes such as Deployments, StatefulSets, DaemonSets, Pods, etc.
• Modify Resources: Users are able to edit and delete resources, they can also scale the Deployments, StatefulSets, DaemonSets when required.
• Status Information: Get an overview of the status of the workloads and other events in the cluster.
• Resource Usage: Check the requests, limits and usage of the pods and containers in the cluster.
• Terminal: It also offers a shell which allows you to get into the container straight from the phone or desktop

To install the Kubenav, use the below methods.

• Install on Android

Get Kubenav from PlayStore.

• Install On Iphone:

Get Kubenav on AppStore

• Install on Desktop

Download Kubenav from GitHub

Once installed, launch Kubenav and enjoy!

6. Kubeapps

Kubeapps is a web-based in-cluster tool that allows users to deploy, manage, and upgrade applications on a Kubernetes cluster. This tool provides a one-time installation which can be done in seconds.

By using Kubeapps, you are able to:

• View and deploy packages with Helm, Flux, Carvel etc form public and private repos.
• Customize and modify deployments using the web based interface.
• View, update and delete apps in the cluster
• Browse and install Kubernetes Operators
• Secure the authentication to Kubeapps with standalone OAuth2/OIDC provider or using Pinniped
• Secure authorization using RBAC on Kubernetes.

To install Kubeapps, you need to run the below commands on your cluster. You need to have Helm installed first:

• How to install Helm 3 on Kubernetes

Then issue the commands below:

helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
kubectl create namespace kubeapps
helm install kubeapps --namespace kubeapps bitnami/kubeapps

For more, follow the steps on how to Get started with Kubeapps. Then start the dashboard:

kubectl port-forward -n kubeapps svc/kubeapps 8080:80

Access the Kubeapps UI using the provided port say http://IP_Address:8080

Once the token has been provided, you will have access to your cluster. Proceed and manage the resources as desired:

7. Devtron

Devtron is cloud-native tool used to manage Kubernetes. It intergrates so well with products across the microservices lifecycle such as CI/CD, debugging, observability, security and cost directly from the web UI. You can use it to deploy, observe, manage and debug apps in your cluster.

This tool offers features such as:

• Application-level resource grouping: It is able to group the Kubernetes objects deployed via Helm charts and display them in a slick UIwhcih makes it so easy to debug and monitor. You can also access the manifest straight from the UI.
• Centralized Access Management: This allows users to control and asign/customize view-only, edit access to various users in the cluster.
• Deploy, Manage and Observe on multiple clusters: Users are able to deploy and manage Helm charts, apps and multiple Kubernetes cluster in the infra both hosted and on cloud.

There are two ways of installing Devtron which require Helm. Install it by following the below guide:

• How to install Helm 3 on Kubernetes

Choose any of the methods below that works best for you:

• Devtron with CI/CD integration:

helm repo add devtron https://helm.devtron.ai

helm install devtron devtron/devtron-operator \
--create-namespace --namespace devtroncd \
--set installer.modules={cicd}

• Devtron with Helm Bundle

helm repo add devtron https://helm.devtron.ai
helm install devtron devtron/devtron-operator --create-namespace --namespace devtroncd

Now access the Devtron dashboard:

kubectl get svc -n devtroncd devtron-service -o jsonpath='{.status.loadBalancer.ingress}'

Use the username as admin and the password obtained with the command:

kubectl -n devtroncd get secret devtron-secret -o jsonpath='{.data.ADMIN_PASSWORD}' | base64 -d
##OR (For Versions less than v0.6.0)
kubectl -n devtroncd get secret devtron-secret -o jsonpath='{.data.ACD_PASSWORD}' | base64 -d

Proceed and manage the cluster as desired with Devtron:

8. Skooner

Snooker, previously known as k8dash is a sandbox project of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. It provides the easiest way of managing a Kubernetes cluster.

Snooker offers the following benefits:

• Full cluster management: The users have the ability to manage Namespaces, Nodes, Pods, Replica Sets, Deployments, Storage, RBAC etc.
• Quickly visualize cluster health at a glance: The tool provides real-time charts help quickly track down how the resources are perfoming.
• 100% responsive with a UI that can run on your phone or tablet.
• Simple OpenID integration: No special proxies are required.
• Easy CRUD and scaling: with inline API docs to help users to understand what each field does.
• Simple installation: There is a YAML provided to have Snooker up and running within a minute.

To install Snooker, you need a running Kubernetes cluster and a config for OpenID Connect(optional). Then pull the kubernetes-skooner.yaml. and deploy Snooker with the command:

kubectl apply -f https://raw.githubusercontent.com/skooner-k8s/skooner/master/kubernetes-skooner.yaml

You can set up an Ingress for SNooker if you have a controller running by using the below YAML:

kind: Ingress
apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
metadata:
  name: skooner
  namespace: kube-system
spec:
  rules:
    - host: skooner.example.com
      http:
        paths:
          - path: /
            backend:
              service:
                name: skooner
                port:
                  number: 80
            pathType: ImplementationSpecific

To log in to Snooker, you can use Service Account Token, OIDC, and NodePort. Once logged in, you can manage the Kubernetes cluster.

9. Kubernetes Operational View

This is a read-only system dashboard for multiple Kubernetes clusters. The main goal of this tool is to provide a common operational picture for multiple Kubernetes clusters

With this tool, users are able to:

• Render nodes and indicate their overall status
• Show node capacity and resource usage (CPU, memory)
• Render Individual pods: They can indicate the pod status by border line color, Show current CPU/memory usage and view the system pods.
• Get tooltip information for nodes and pods
• Automate pod creation and termination

This tool hovewer is not a replacement of the Kubernetes Dashboard. The Kubernetes dashboard allows users to manage apps. This tool is not a monitoring solution nor an operation management tool. It does not allow interacting with the cluster.

There are two main ways of installing Kubernetes Operational View. These are:

• Running locally

You can run it locally against your cluster with kubectl proxy

kubectl proxy &
docker run -it --net=host hjacobs/kube-ops-view

Incase you are using Docker on MacOS, the command will be:

kubectl proxy --accept-hosts '.*' &
docker run -it -p 8080:8080 -e CLUSTERS=http://docker.for.mac.localhost:8001 hjacobs/kube-ops-view

• Install Kubernetes Operational View

For this method, you need to clone the Kube-ops-view repo

git clone https://codeberg.org/hjacobs/kube-ops-view.git
cd kube-ops-view

Now apply all the manifests in the deploy folder

kubectl apply -k deploy  # apply all manifests from the folder

Now expose the service using the port-forward command below:

kubectl port-forward service/kube-ops-view 8080:80

Now access the service on port 8080.

Final Thoughts

In this guide, we have walked through the 9 Best Kubernetes UI Management Tools. Now you are free to choose one that best fits your needs and environment. I hope this was informative.

See more:

• How To Install Kubernetes Dashboard with NodePort / LB
• How To Create Admin User to Access Kubernetes Dashboard
• How to interact with Containerd Runtime in Kubernetes
• Install and Use KubeSphere on existing Kubernetes cluster
• How To Manage your Helm Charts using Helm Dashboard