Best Free Cluster Management Software of 2025

Kubernetes serves as a powerful foundation for transformative ideas. It enables developers to innovate and deliver projects more rapidly through the premier hybrid cloud and enterprise container solution. Red Hat OpenShift simplifies the process with automated installations, updates, and comprehensive lifecycle management across the entire container ecosystem, encompassing the operating system, Kubernetes, cluster services, and applications on any cloud platform. This service allows teams to operate with speed, flexibility, assurance, and a variety of options. You can code in production mode wherever you prefer to create, enabling a return to meaningful work. Emphasizing security at all stages of the container framework and application lifecycle, Red Hat OpenShift provides robust, long-term enterprise support from a leading contributor to Kubernetes and open-source technology. It is capable of handling the most demanding workloads, including AI/ML, Java, data analytics, databases, and more. Furthermore, it streamlines deployment and lifecycle management through a wide array of technology partners, ensuring that your operational needs are met seamlessly. This integration of capabilities fosters an environment where innovation can thrive without compromise.

Appvia Wayfinder provides a dynamic solution to manage your cloud infrastructure. It gives your developers self-service capabilities that let them manage and provision cloud resources without any hitch. Wayfinder's core is its security-first strategy, which is built on principles of least privilege and isolation. You can rest assured that your resources are safe. Platform teams rejoice! Centralised control allows you to guide your team and maintain organisational standards. But it's not just business. Wayfinder provides a single pane for visibility. It gives you a bird's-eye view of your clusters, applications, and resources across all three clouds. Join the leading engineering groups worldwide who rely on Appvia Wayfinder for cloud deployments. Do not let your competitors leave behind you. Watch your team's efficiency and productivity soar when you embrace Wayfinder!

Introducing K8 Studio, the premier cross-platform client IDE designed for streamlined management of Kubernetes clusters. Effortlessly deploy your applications across leading platforms like EKS, GKE, AKS, or even on your own bare metal infrastructure. Enjoy the convenience of connecting to your cluster through a user-friendly interface that offers a clear visual overview of nodes, pods, services, and other essential components. Instantly access logs, receive in-depth descriptions of elements, and utilize a bash terminal with just a click. K8 Studio enhances your Kubernetes workflow with its intuitive features. With a grid view for a detailed tabular representation of Kubernetes objects, users can easily navigate through various components. The sidebar allows for the quick selection of object types, ensuring a fully interactive experience that updates in real time. Users benefit from the ability to search and filter objects by namespace, as well as rearranging columns for customized viewing. Workloads, services, ingresses, and volumes are organized by both namespace and instance, facilitating efficient management. Additionally, K8 Studio enables users to visualize the connections between objects, allowing for a quick assessment of pod counts and current statuses. Dive into a more organized and efficient Kubernetes management experience with K8 Studio, where every feature is designed to optimize your workflow.

Slurm Workload Manager, which was previously referred to as Simple Linux Utility for Resource Management (SLURM), is an open-source and cost-free job scheduling and cluster management system tailored for Linux and Unix-like operating systems. Its primary function is to oversee computing tasks within high-performance computing (HPC) clusters and high-throughput computing (HTC) settings, making it a popular choice among numerous supercomputers and computing clusters globally. As technology continues to evolve, Slurm remains a critical tool for researchers and organizations requiring efficient resource management.

While many Kubernetes platforms enable users to create and oversee Kubernetes clusters, Loft takes a different approach. Rather than being a standalone solution for managing clusters, Loft serves as an advanced control plane that enhances your current Kubernetes environments by introducing multi-tenancy and self-service functionalities, maximizing the benefits of Kubernetes beyond mere cluster oversight. It boasts an intuitive user interface and command-line interface, yet operates entirely on the Kubernetes framework, allowing seamless management through kubectl and the Kubernetes API, which ensures exceptional compatibility with pre-existing cloud-native tools. The commitment to developing open-source solutions is integral to our mission, as Loft Labs proudly holds membership with both the CNCF and the Linux Foundation. By utilizing Loft, organizations can enable their teams to create economical and efficient Kubernetes environments tailored for diverse applications, fostering innovation and agility in their workflows. This unique capability empowers businesses to harness the true potential of Kubernetes without the complexity often associated with cluster management.

Edka streamlines the establishment of a production-ready Platform as a Service (PaaS) using standard cloud virtual machines and Kubernetes, significantly minimizing the manual labor needed to manage applications on Kubernetes by offering preconfigured open-source add-ons that effectively transform a Kubernetes cluster into a comprehensive PaaS solution. To enhance Kubernetes operations, Edka organizes them into distinct layers: Layer 1: Cluster provisioning – A user-friendly interface that allows for the effortless creation of a k3s-based cluster with just one click and default settings. Layer 2: Add-ons – A convenient one-click deployment option for essential components like metrics-server, cert-manager, and various operators, all preconfigured for use with Hetzner, requiring no additional setup. Layer 3: Applications – User interfaces with minimal configurations tailored for applications that utilize the aforementioned add-ons. Layer 4: Deployments – Edka ensures automatic updates to deployments in accordance with semantic versioning rules, offering features such as instant rollbacks, autoscaling capabilities, persistent volume management, secret/environment imports, and quick public accessibility for applications. Furthermore, this structure allows developers to focus on building their applications rather than managing the underlying infrastructure.

xCAT, or Extreme Cloud Administration Toolkit, is a versatile open-source solution aimed at streamlining the deployment, scaling, and oversight of both bare metal servers and virtual machines. It delivers extensive management functionalities tailored for environments such as high-performance computing clusters, render farms, grids, web farms, online gaming infrastructures, cloud setups, and data centers. Built on a foundation of established system administration practices, xCAT offers a flexible framework that allows system administrators to identify hardware servers, perform remote management tasks, deploy operating systems on physical or virtual machines in both disk and diskless configurations, set up and manage user applications, and execute parallel system management operations. This toolkit is compatible with a range of operating systems, including Red Hat, Ubuntu, SUSE, and CentOS, as well as architectures such as ppc64le, x86_64, and ppc64. Moreover, it supports various management protocols, including IPMI, HMC, FSP, and OpenBMC, which enable seamless remote console access. In addition to its core functionalities, xCAT's extensible nature allows for ongoing enhancements and adaptations to meet the evolving needs of modern IT infrastructures.

Welcome to the OpenHPC website, a platform born from a collaborative community effort aimed at unifying various essential components necessary for the deployment and management of High Performance Computing (HPC) Linux clusters. This initiative encompasses tools for provisioning, resource management, I/O clients, development utilities, and a range of scientific libraries, all designed with HPC integration as a priority. The packages offered by OpenHPC are specifically pre-built to serve as reusable building blocks for the HPC community, ensuring efficiency and accessibility. As the community evolves, there are plans to define and create abstraction interfaces among key components to further improve modularity and interchangeability within the ecosystem. Representing a diverse array of stakeholders including software vendors, equipment manufacturers, research institutions, and supercomputing facilities, this community is dedicated to the seamless integration of widely used components that are available for open-source distribution. By working together, they aim to foster innovation and collaboration in the field of High Performance Computing. This collective effort not only enhances existing technologies but also paves the way for future advancements in the HPC landscape.

TrinityX is a cluster management solution that is open source and developed by ClusterVision, aimed at ensuring continuous monitoring for environments focused on High-Performance Computing (HPC) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). It delivers a robust support system that adheres to service level agreements (SLAs), enabling researchers to concentrate on their work without the burden of managing intricate technologies such as Linux, SLURM, CUDA, InfiniBand, Lustre, and Open OnDemand. By providing an easy-to-use interface, TrinityX simplifies the process of cluster setup, guiding users through each phase to configure clusters for various applications including container orchestration, conventional HPC, and InfiniBand/RDMA configurations. Utilizing the BitTorrent protocol, it facilitates the swift deployment of AI and HPC nodes, allowing for configurations to be completed in mere minutes. Additionally, the platform boasts a detailed dashboard that presents real-time data on cluster performance metrics, resource usage, and workload distribution, which helps users quickly identify potential issues and optimize resource distribution effectively. This empowers teams to make informed decisions that enhance productivity and operational efficiency within their computational environments.

OpenSVC is an innovative open-source software solution aimed at boosting IT productivity through a comprehensive suite of tools that facilitate service mobility, clustering, container orchestration, configuration management, and thorough infrastructure auditing. The platform is divided into two primary components: the agent and the collector. Acting as a supervisor, clusterware, container orchestrator, and configuration manager, the agent simplifies the deployment, management, and scaling of services across a variety of environments, including on-premises systems, virtual machines, and cloud instances. It is compatible with multiple operating systems, including Unix, Linux, BSD, macOS, and Windows, and provides an array of features such as cluster DNS, backend networks, ingress gateways, and scalers to enhance functionality. Meanwhile, the collector plays a crucial role by aggregating data reported by agents and retrieving information from the site’s infrastructure, which encompasses networks, SANs, storage arrays, backup servers, and asset managers. This collector acts as a dependable, adaptable, and secure repository for data, ensuring that IT teams have access to vital information for decision-making and operational efficiency. Together, these components empower organizations to streamline their IT processes and maximize resource utilization effectively.

Qlustar presents an all-encompassing full-stack solution that simplifies the setup, management, and scaling of clusters while maintaining control and performance. It enhances your HPC, AI, and storage infrastructures with exceptional ease and powerful features. The journey begins with a bare-metal installation using the Qlustar installer, followed by effortless cluster operations that encompass every aspect of management. Experience unparalleled simplicity and efficiency in both establishing and overseeing your clusters. Designed with scalability in mind, it adeptly handles even the most intricate workloads with ease. Its optimization for speed, reliability, and resource efficiency makes it ideal for demanding environments. You can upgrade your operating system or handle security patches without requiring reinstallations, ensuring minimal disruption. Regular and dependable updates safeguard your clusters against potential vulnerabilities, contributing to their overall security. Qlustar maximizes your computing capabilities, ensuring peak efficiency for high-performance computing settings. Additionally, its robust workload management, built-in high availability features, and user-friendly interface provide a streamlined experience, making operations smoother than ever before. This comprehensive approach ensures that your computing infrastructure remains resilient and adaptable to changing needs.

Warewulf is a cutting-edge cluster management and provisioning solution that has led the way in stateless node management for more than twenty years. This innovative system facilitates the deployment of containers directly onto bare metal hardware at an impressive scale, accommodating anywhere from a handful to tens of thousands of computing units while preserving an easy-to-use and adaptable framework. The platform offers extensibility, which empowers users to tailor default functionalities and node images to meet specific clustering needs. Additionally, Warewulf endorses stateless provisioning that incorporates SELinux, along with per-node asset key-based provisioning and access controls, thereby ensuring secure deployment environments. With its minimal system requirements, Warewulf is designed for straightforward optimization, customization, and integration, making it suitable for a wide range of industries. Backed by OpenHPC and a global community of contributors, Warewulf has established itself as a prominent HPC cluster platform applied across multiple sectors. Its user-friendly features not only simplify initial setup but also enhance the overall adaptability, making it an ideal choice for organizations seeking efficient cluster management solutions.

Rocks is an open-source Linux distribution designed for building computational clusters, grid endpoints, and visualization tiled-display walls with ease for end users. Since its inception in May 2000, the Rocks team has worked to simplify the deployment and management of clusters, focusing on making them easy to deploy, manage, upgrade, and scale effectively. The most recent version, Rocks 7.0, also known as Manzanita, is exclusively a 64-bit release based on CentOS 7.4, incorporating all updates as of December 1, 2017. This distribution comes with a variety of tools, including the Message Passing Interface (MPI), which are essential for converting a collection of computers into a functional cluster. Users can customize their installations by incorporating additional software packages during the installation process using specially provided CDs. Moreover, recent security vulnerabilities known as Spectre and Meltdown impact nearly all hardware, and appropriate mitigations are implemented through operating system updates to enhance security. As a result, Rocks not only facilitates the creation of clusters but also ensures that they remain secure and up-to-date with the latest patches and enhancements.

Displaying only an RTF-Editor in a pop-up does not align with our vision of WYSIWYG; authors require precise control over aspects such as paragraph lengths, line breaks, table dimensions, and image sizes to produce visually appealing content. The system should utilize tags and server-side JavaScript, devoid of any Java within template code. OpenWGA Developer Studio enhances the software development journey by providing all essential tools for the creation, development, deployment, and sharing of OpenWGA web applications. With a suite of advanced technologies—including secure cluster architecture, JMX monitoring, SSO via SPNEGO, CMIS, and an integrated REST-API—OpenWGA Java CMS stands out as the ideal platform for executing business-critical enterprise applications. Additionally, the OpenWGA CMS cluster management framework facilitates not only secure inter-cluster communication and distributed task execution but also incorporates its own session replication system, optimizing resource management for better performance. This comprehensive approach ensures that developers can focus on delivering high-quality applications without the overhead of managing complex backend processes.

Mesos operates on principles similar to those of the Linux kernel, yet it functions at a different abstraction level. This Mesos kernel is deployed on each machine and offers APIs for managing resources and scheduling tasks for applications like Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, and Elasticsearch across entire cloud infrastructures and data centers. It includes native capabilities for launching containers using Docker and AppC images. Additionally, it allows both cloud-native and legacy applications to coexist within the same cluster through customizable scheduling policies. Developers can utilize HTTP APIs to create new distributed applications, manage the cluster, and carry out monitoring tasks. Furthermore, Mesos features an integrated Web UI that allows users to observe the cluster's status and navigate through container sandboxes efficiently. Overall, Mesos provides a versatile and powerful framework for managing diverse workloads in modern computing environments.

A versatile and straightforward workload orchestrator designed to deploy and oversee both containerized and non-containerized applications seamlessly across on-premises and cloud environments at scale. This efficient tool comes as a single 35MB binary that effortlessly fits into your existing infrastructure. It provides an easy operational experience whether on-prem or in the cloud, maintaining minimal overhead. Capable of orchestrating various types of applications—not limited to just containers—it offers top-notch support for Docker, Windows, Java, VMs, and more. By introducing orchestration advantages, it helps enhance existing services. Users can achieve zero downtime deployments, increased resilience, and improved resource utilization without the need for containerization. A single command allows for multi-region, multi-cloud federation, enabling global application deployment to any region using Nomad as a cohesive control plane. This results in a streamlined workflow for deploying applications to either bare metal or cloud environments. Additionally, Nomad facilitates the development of multi-cloud applications with remarkable ease and integrates smoothly with Terraform, Consul, and Vault for efficient provisioning, service networking, and secrets management, making it an indispensable tool in modern application management.

Simplifying Multi-Cloud and Multi-Cluster Kubernetes application deployment and migration is now easier than ever with CAPE. Unlock the full potential of your Kubernetes capabilities with its key features, including Disaster Recovery that allows seamless backup and restore for stateful applications. With robust Data Mobility and Migration, you can securely manage and transfer applications and data across on-premises, private, and public cloud environments. CAPE also facilitates Multi-cluster Application Deployment, enabling stateful applications to be deployed efficiently across various clusters and clouds. Its intuitive Drag & Drop CI/CD Workflow Manager simplifies the configuration and deployment of complex CI/CD pipelines, making it accessible for users at all levels. The versatility of CAPE™ enhances Kubernetes operations by streamlining Disaster Recovery processes, facilitating Cluster Migration and Upgrades, ensuring Data Protection, enabling Data Cloning, and expediting Application Deployment. Moreover, CAPE provides a comprehensive control plane for federating clusters and managing applications and services seamlessly across diverse environments. This innovative tool brings clarity and efficiency to Kubernetes management, ensuring your applications thrive in a multi-cloud landscape.

Sync Computing's Gradient is an advanced AI-driven optimization engine designed to streamline and enhance cloud-based data infrastructure. Utilizing cutting-edge machine learning technology developed at MIT, Gradient enables organizations to optimize the performance of their cloud workloads on CPUs and GPUs while significantly reducing costs. The platform offers up to 50% savings on Databricks compute expenses, ensuring workloads consistently meet runtime service level agreements (SLAs). With continuous monitoring and dynamic adjustments, Gradient adapts to changing data sizes and workload patterns, delivering peak efficiency across complex pipelines. Seamlessly integrating with existing tools and supporting various cloud providers, Sync Computing provides a robust solution for optimizing modern data infrastructure.

Proxmox VE serves as a comprehensive open-source solution for enterprise virtualization, seamlessly combining KVM hypervisor and LXC container technology, along with features for software-defined storage and networking, all within one cohesive platform. It also simplifies the management of high availability clusters and disaster recovery tools through its user-friendly web management interface, making it an ideal choice for businesses seeking robust virtualization capabilities. Furthermore, Proxmox VE's integration of these functionalities enhances operational efficiency and flexibility for IT environments.