README.md

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What is vCluster?

vCluster creates Tenant Clusters — fully isolated Kubernetes environments that run on top of a Control Plane Cluster, on dedicated infrastructure, or standalone on bare metal. Each tenant gets its own API server, CRDs, and RBAC, with a cluster experience indistinguishable from a dedicated Kubernetes cluster.

Built for production. Trusted in production. 40M+ Tenant Clusters deployed by teams at Adobe, CoreWeave, NVIDIA, Lintasarta, Atlan, Deloitte, and hundreds of AI clouds, AI factories, and Fortune 500 platform organizations.

CNCF Certified Kubernetes — Distribution and Kubernetes AI Conformant (v1.35) — every Tenant Cluster is upstream Kubernetes with no vendor lock‑in, validated for portable AI/ML workloads (training, inference, agentic).

The public-cloud experience, on your own infrastructure. Give every team the Kubernetes they need — with strict isolation, hardware-aware scheduling, and zero tenant sprawl — whether you run one region or 100K GPUs.

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🚀 Quick Start

# Install vCluster CLI
brew install loft-sh/tap/vcluster

# Create a Tenant Cluster
vcluster create my-vcluster --namespace team-x

# Use kubectl as usual — you're now in your Tenant Cluster
kubectl get namespaces

Prerequisites: A running Kubernetes cluster and kubectl configured. Or go straight to bare metal with vCluster Standalone.

👉 Full Quickstart Guide

🐳 Run Locally with Docker — vind

No Kubernetes cluster? Run vCluster directly on Docker with vind (vCluster in Docker) — like kind, but with the full vCluster feature set (UI, sleep/resume, LoadBalancer, image cache):

vcluster create my-vcluster --driver docker
kubectl get namespaces

🎮 Try in the Browser

🎁 vCluster Free Tier

Real usage, not a gated demo. Unlimited Tenant Clusters up to 64 CPUs / 32 GPUs, Private Nodes, Auto Nodes, Standalone, and the Platform UI — for free. Get Started Free →

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🆕 What's New

Version	Feature	Description
v0.33	Enterprise Reliability & Storage	Automatic leaf-cert regeneration, Azure Blob snapshot destinations, workload-level sleep annotations
v0.32	Docker Driver & DRA	Run vCluster on Docker, Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA) for GPU workloads, in-place pod resizing
v0.31	Snapshots & Cross-Cluster APIs	Expanded snapshot/restore lifecycle, PDBs for Tenant Cluster control planes, cross-cluster resource proxying
v0.30	vCluster VPN & Netris Integration	Tailscale-powered overlay networking and automated hardware isolation via Netris
v0.27–v0.29	Architecture Foundations	Private Nodes (v0.27, CNI/CSI isolation), Auto Nodes (v0.28, Karpenter autoscaling), Standalone Mode (v0.29, bare metal / no Control Plane Cluster)

👉 Full Changelog

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🎯 Use Cases

Use Case	Description	Learn More
AI Factory	Run AI on-prem where your data and GPUs live. Give every team the GPU access they need without multiplying infrastructure.	View →
AI Cloud Providers	Launch a hyperscaler-like Kubernetes experience for your GPU customers. Isolated, production-grade, in minutes.	View →
Internal GPU Platform	Maximize GPU utilization without sacrificing isolation. Self-service Kubernetes for AI/ML teams.	View →
Bare Metal Kubernetes	Run production Kubernetes on bare metal with zero VMs. Isolation without expensive virtualization overhead.	View →
Software Vendors	Ship Kubernetes-native products. Each customer gets their own isolated Tenant Cluster.	View →
Environments & Cost Savings	Consolidate clusters, pause idle workloads with sleep mode, and cut Kubernetes cost at scale.	View →

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🏗️ Architectures

vCluster supports multiple deployment architectures. Each builds on the previous, offering progressively stronger isolation — from dense shared infrastructure to fully standalone bare metal.

Architecture Comparison

	Shared Nodes	Dedicated Nodes	Private Nodes	Standalone
Control Plane Cluster	Required	Required	Required	Not Required
Node Isolation	❌	✅	✅	✅
CNI/CSI Isolation	❌	❌	✅	✅
Bare Metal Ready	—	—	✅	✅
Best For	Dev/test, density	Production tenants	Compliance, GPU	AI factories, edge

👉 Full Architecture Guide

Minimal Configuration

🔹 Shared Nodes — Maximum density, minimum cost

Tenant Clusters share the Control Plane Cluster's nodes. Workloads run as regular pods in a namespace.

sync:
  fromHost:
    nodes:
      enabled: false  # Uses pseudo nodes

🔹 Dedicated Nodes — Isolated compute on labeled node pools

Tenant Clusters get their own set of labeled nodes on the Control Plane Cluster. Workloads are isolated but still managed by the Control Plane Cluster.

sync:
  fromHost:
    nodes:
      enabled: true
      selector:
        labels:
          tenant: my-tenant

🔹 Private Nodes ^v0.27+ — Full CNI/CSI isolation

External nodes join the Tenant Cluster directly with their own CNI, CSI, and networking stack. Complete workload isolation from the Control Plane Cluster.

privateNodes:
  enabled: true
controlPlane:
  service:
    spec:
      type: NodePort

🔹 vCluster Standalone ^v0.29+ — No Control Plane Cluster required

Run vCluster without any Control Plane Cluster. Deploy the Virtual Control Plane directly on bare metal or VMs. The highest level of isolation — vCluster becomes the cluster.

controlPlane:
  standalone:
    enabled: true
    joinNode:
      enabled: true
privateNodes:
  enabled: true

⚡ Auto Nodes ^v0.28+ — Karpenter-powered dynamic autoscaling

Automatically provision and deprovision private nodes based on workload demand. Works across public cloud, private cloud, hybrid, and bare metal environments.

autoNodes:
  enabled: true
  nodeProvider: <provider>
privateNodes:
  enabled: true

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✨ Key Features

Feature	Description
🎛️ Isolated Virtual Control Plane	Each Tenant Cluster gets its own API server, controller manager, and data store — complete Kubernetes API isolation
🔗 Shared Platform Stack	Leverage the Control Plane Cluster's CNI, CSI, ingress, and other infrastructure — no duplicate platform components
🔒 Strong Tenant Isolation	Tenants get admin access inside their Tenant Cluster while having minimal permissions on the Control Plane Cluster
🔄 Resource Syncing	Bidirectional sync of any Kubernetes resource — pods, services, secrets, configmaps, CRDs, and more
💤 Sleep Mode	Pause inactive Tenant Clusters to save resources. Instant wake when needed
🖥️ Bare Metal & Standalone	Run with or without a Control Plane Cluster. Purpose-built for AI factories and on-prem GPU fleets
🧩 Integrations	Native support for cert-manager, external-secrets, KubeVirt, Istio, and metrics-server
📊 High Availability	Multiple replicas with leader election. Embedded etcd or external databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, RDS)

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🌐 The vCluster Platform

vCluster is the foundation of a broader platform for running production Kubernetes and AI infrastructure on your own hardware — from a single rack to 100K-GPU supercomputers.

Product	What it does
vCluster	Tenant Clusters — Virtual Control Planes with API, data, and (optionally) network isolation
vNode	Runtime-level tenant isolation. Kernel-enforced boundaries (seccomp, cgroups, namespaces, AppArmor) without VM overhead
vMetal	Zero-touch bare metal provisioning for GPU fleets. Turns GPU racks into a cloud platform
Netris (integration)	Hardware-enforced network isolation via programmatic VLANs, VRFs, and ACLs

Together these deliver the four layers of an AI factory: Certified Stacks → Tenant Isolation → Tenant Clusters → GPU Infrastructure Operations — the same pattern used to run production AI on hundreds of GPU clouds and Fortune 500 on-prem platforms.

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🏢 Trusted By

Atlan 100 → 1 clusters	Aussie Broadband 99% faster provisioning	CoreWeave GPU cloud at scale
Lintasarta 170+ Tenant Clusters in prod	Fortune 500 Insurance 70% reduction in Kubernetes cost	Scanmetrix 99% faster deployments
Deloitte Enterprise K8s platform	Ada 10x Developer Productivity	Trade Connectors 50% reduction in K8s ops cost

Also used by: NVIDIA, ABBYY, Precisely, Shipwire, and many more — with 50+ GPU clouds and Fortune 500s running vCluster in production.

👉 View All Case Studies

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📚 Learn More

🎤 Conference Talks

Event	Speaker	Title	Link
KubeCon NA 2025 (Keynote)	Lukas Gentele	Autoscaling GPU Clusters Anywhere — Hyperscalers, Neoclouds & Baremetal	Watch
Platform Engineering Day NA 2025 (Keynote)	Saiyam Pathak	AI-Ready Platforms: Scaling Teams Without Scaling Costs	Watch
Rejekts NA 2025	Hrittik Roy, Saiyam Pathak	Beyond the Default Scheduler: Navigating GPU MultiTenancy in AI Era	Watch
KubeCon EU 2025	Paco Xu, Saiyam Pathak	A Huge Cluster or Multi-Clusters? Identifying the Bottleneck	Watch
HashiConf 2025	Scott McAllister	GPU sharing done right: Secrets, security, and scaling with Vault and vCluster	Watch
FOSDEM 2025	Hrittik Roy, Saiyam Pathak	Accelerating CI Pipelines: Rapid Kubernetes Testing with vCluster	Watch
KubeCon India 2024 (Keynote)	Saiyam Pathak	From Outage To Observability: Lessons From a Kubernetes Meltdown	Watch
CNCF Book Club 2024	Marc Boorshtein	Kubernetes - An Enterprise Guide (vCluster)	Watch
KCD NYC 2024	Lukas Gentele	Tenant Autonomy & Isolation In Multi-Tenant Kubernetes Clusters	Watch
KubeCon EU 2023	Ilia Medvedev, Kostis Kapelonis	How We Securely Scaled Multi-Tenancy with VCluster, Crossplane, and Argo CD	Watch
KubeCon NA 2022	Joseph Sandoval, Dan Garfield	How Adobe Planned For Scale With Argo CD, Cluster API, And VCluster	Watch
KubeCon NA 2022	Whitney Lee, Mauricio Salatino	What a RUSH! Let's Deploy Straight to Production!	Watch
TGI Kubernetes 2022	TGI	TGI Kubernetes 188: vCluster	Watch
Mirantis Tech Talks 2022	Mirantis	Multi-tenancy & Isolation using Virtual Clusters (vCluster) in K8s	Watch
Solo Webinar 2022	Rich Burroughs, Fabian Keller	Speed your Istio development environment with vCluster	Watch
KubeCon NA 2021	Lukas Gentele	Beyond Namespaces: Virtual Clusters are the Future of Multi-Tenancy	Watch

🎬 Community Voice

Channel	Speaker	Title	Link
TeKanAid 2024	TeKanAid	Getting Started with vCluster: Build Your IDP with Backstage, Crossplane, and ArgoCD	Watch
Rawkode 2021	David McKay, Lukas Gentele	Hands on Introduction to vCluster	Watch
Kubesimplify 2021	Saiyam Pathak, Lukas Gentele	Let's Learn vCluster	Watch
TechWorld with Nana 2021	Nana	Build your Self-Service Kubernetes Platform with Virtual Clusters	Watch
DevOps Toolkit 2021	Viktor Farcic	How To Create Virtual Kubernetes Clusters	Watch

👉 YouTube Channel • Blog

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🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Check out our Contributing Guide to get started.

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🔗 Links

Resource	Link
📖 Documentation	vcluster.com/docs
💬 Slack Community	slack.loft.sh
🌐 Website	vcluster.com
🐦 X (Twitter)	@vcluster
💼 LinkedIn	vCluster
💬 Chat with Expert	Start Chat

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📜 License

vCluster is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.

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