Compare the Top Free Container Orchestration Software as of July 2025

What is Free Container Orchestration Software?

Container orchestration software is a platform that automates the deployment, management, scaling, and networking of containers in a distributed environment. These tools help manage the complexities of containerized applications by ensuring containers are running efficiently, scaled appropriately, and able to communicate with each other. The most popular container orchestration software uses tools like Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, or Apache Mesos, providing features such as load balancing, automated container provisioning, self-healing, and monitoring. These tools are essential for managing large-scale containerized applications and microservices, ensuring high availability, performance, and resilience. Compare and read user reviews of the best Free Container Orchestration software currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    Google Cloud Platform
    Google Cloud Platform offers Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), a fully managed service for container orchestration. GKE simplifies the management of Kubernetes clusters, automating tasks such as scaling, load balancing, and rolling updates. With the $300 in free credits for new customers, users can run, test, and deploy containerized applications on GCP to understand how container orchestration works, all while minimizing initial costs. The service also integrates seamlessly with GCP’s monitoring and logging tools, providing deep insights into the health and performance of applications. Additionally, GKE supports multi-cluster management, making it easy for organizations to deploy containerized applications across multiple regions. This orchestration service is ideal for businesses that want to scale their containerized applications globally without compromising reliability or security.
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    Starting Price: Free ($300 in free credits)
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  • 2
    Kasm Workspaces

    Kasm Workspaces

    Kasm Technologies

    Kasm Workspaces streams your workplace environment directly to your web browser…on any device and from any location. Kasm uses our high-performance streaming and secure isolation technology to provide web-native Desktop as a Service (DaaS), application streaming, and secure/private web browsing. Kasm is not just a service; it is a highly configurable platform with a robust developer API and devops-enabled workflows that can be customized for your use-case, at any scale. Workspaces can be deployed in the cloud (Public or Private), on-premise (Including Air-Gapped Networks or your Homelab), or in a hybrid configuration.
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    Starting Price: $0 Free Community Edition
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  • 3
    Red Hat OpenShift
    The Kubernetes platform for big ideas. Empower developers to innovate and ship faster with the leading hybrid cloud, enterprise container platform. Red Hat OpenShift offers automated installation, upgrades, and lifecycle management throughout the container stack—the operating system, Kubernetes and cluster services, and applications—on any cloud. Red Hat OpenShift helps teams build with speed, agility, confidence, and choice. Code in production mode anywhere you choose to build. Get back to doing work that matters. Red Hat OpenShift is focused on security at every level of the container stack and throughout the application lifecycle. It includes long-term, enterprise support from one of the leading Kubernetes contributors and open source software companies. Support the most demanding workloads including AI/ML, Java, data analytics, databases, and more. Automate deployment and life-cycle management with our vast ecosystem of technology partners.
    Starting Price: $50.00/month
  • 4
    Portainer Business
    Portainer is an intuitive container management platform for Docker, Kubernetes, and Edge-based environments. With a smart UI, Portainer enables you to build, deploy, manage, and secure your containerized environments with ease. It makes container adoption easier for the whole team and reduces time-to-value on Kubernetes and Docker/Swarm. With a simple GUI and a comprehensive API, the product makes it easy for engineers to deploy and manage container-based apps, triage issues, automate CI/CD workflows and set up CaaS (container-as-a-service) environments regardless of hosting environment or K8s distro. Portainer Business is designed to be used in a team environment with multiple users and clusters. The product includes a range of security features, including RBAC, OAuth integration, and logging - making it suitable for use in complex production environments. Portainer also allows you to set up GitOps automation for deployment of your apps to Docker and K8s based on Git repos.
    Starting Price: Free
  • 5
    Ambassador

    Ambassador

    Ambassador Labs

    Ambassador Edge Stack is a Kubernetes-native API Gateway that delivers the scalability, security, and simplicity for some of the world's largest Kubernetes installations. Edge Stack makes securing microservices easy with a comprehensive set of security functionality, including automatic TLS, authentication, rate limiting, WAF integration, and fine-grained access control. The API Gateway contains a modern Kubernetes ingress controller that supports a broad range of protocols including gRPC and gRPC-Web, supports TLS termination, and provides traffic management controls for resource availability. Why use Ambassador Edge Stack API Gateway? - Accelerate Scalability: Manage high traffic volumes and distribute incoming requests across multiple backend services, ensuring reliable application performance. - Enhanced Security: Protect your APIs from unauthorized access and malicious attacks with robust security features. - Improve Productivity & Developer Experience
  • 6
    Telepresence

    Telepresence

    Ambassador Labs

    Telepresence streamlines your local development process, enabling immediate feedback. You can launch your local environment on your laptop, equipped with your preferred tools, while Telepresence seamlessly connects them to the microservices and test databases they rely on. It simplifies and expedites collaborative development, debugging, and testing within Kubernetes environments by establishing a seamless connection between your local machine and shared remote Kubernetes clusters. Why Telepresence: Faster feedback loops: Spend less time building, containerizing, and deploying code. Get immediate feedback on code changes by running your service in the cloud from your local machine. Shift testing left: Create a remote-to-local debugging experience. Catch bugs pre-production without the configuration headache of remote debugging. Deliver better, faster user experience: Get new features and applications into the hands of users faster and more frequently.
    Starting Price: Free
  • 7
    Platform9

    Platform9

    Platform9

    Platform9 is the leader in simplifying enterprise private clouds. Our platform uniquely combines ease of use with flexibility, integrating seamlessly with existing storage and server infrastructure as well as other enterprise platforms. With automated migration tools, open APIs, and flexible deployment options—self-hosted, air-gapped, or SaaS—Platform9 gives you the freedom to run your private cloud, your way. Our flagship product, Private Cloud Director, turns existing servers and storage into a fully featured private cloud. It delivers a familiar management experience for virtualization teams—with the ability to run VMs and containers side by side—and enterprise-grade features including High Availability, live migration, Dynamic Resource Rebalancing, Software Defined Networking, Self Service, and secure multi-tenancy. Hundreds of enterprises, including Rackspace Technology, Cloudera, and Juniper Networks use Platform9 today.
  • 8
    Apache Mesos

    Apache Mesos

    Apache Software Foundation

    Mesos is built using the same principles as the Linux kernel, only at a different level of abstraction. The Mesos kernel runs on every machine and provides applications (e.g., Hadoop, Spark, Kafka, Elasticsearch) with API’s for resource management and scheduling across entire datacenter and cloud environments. Native support for launching containers with Docker and AppC images.Support for running cloud native and legacy applications in the same cluster with pluggable scheduling policies. HTTP APIs for developing new distributed applications, for operating the cluster, and for monitoring. Built-in Web UI for viewing cluster state and navigating container sandboxes.
  • 9
    HashiCorp Nomad
    A simple and flexible workload orchestrator to deploy and manage containers and non-containerized applications across on-prem and clouds at scale. Single 35MB binary that integrates into existing infrastructure. Easy to operate on-prem or in the cloud with minimal overhead. Orchestrate applications of any type - not just containers. First class support for Docker, Windows, Java, VMs, and more. Bring orchestration benefits to existing services. Achieve zero downtime deployments, improved resilience, higher resource utilization, and more without containerization. Single command for multi-region, multi-cloud federation. Deploy applications globally to any region using Nomad as a single unified control plane. One single unified workflow for deploying to bare metal or cloud environments. Enable multi-cloud applications with ease. Nomad integrates seamlessly with Terraform, Consul and Vault for provisioning, service networking, and secrets management.
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