Comparison
PodSteer vs Headlamp
The Kubernetes SIG UI project, in-cluster or on the desktop.
What Headlamp is
Headlamp is an extensible Kubernetes web UI under the kubernetes-sigs organisation, Apache-2.0 licensed, which runs either inside the cluster as a shared dashboard or locally as a desktop application. Being a Kubernetes SIG project gives it governance that an independent tool cannot claim, and that matters to some organisations more than any feature. It is also the project the archived Kubernetes Dashboard now points people to.
Side by side
The differences that matter.
| Aspect | Headlamp | PodSteer |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Governance | A Kubernetes SIG UI project | Independent, under Cloudresty |
| Deployment | In-cluster web UI or a desktop application | Desktop only |
| Desktop app built with | Electron | Go, on the OS webview |
| Platforms and packages | macOS .dmg (arm64, x64); Windows .exe (x64, arm64) and .msi (x64); Linux AppImage and tarball (x64, arm64, armv7l) and an amd64 .deb | macOS: a signed, notarised universal .dmg and .zip, and a Homebrew cask. Linux (amd64, arm64): AppImage, .deb, .rpm and .zip. Windows (amd64): an installer and a .zip, not code-signed, so SmartScreen warns on first launch |
| Security | Not in the core application; available through the third-party Kubescape plugin, which needs its operator | Built in, reading whichever scanner is already installed |
| Account | None; it uses your kubeconfig and RBAC | None; it uses your kubeconfig and RBAC |
| Extensions | A plugin system, with official plugins for Argo CD, Flux, cert-manager, KEDA, Karpenter, OpenCost and an AI assistant | No plugin API, by design; typed panels built in for Argo CD, Flux, cert-manager, KEDA, Argo Rollouts, Trivy, Gateway API and more |
| Large pod lists | Pods fetched 1,000 at a time, with a Load more button (0.44) | Filtered, sorted and paged in Go, so one page crosses to the window rather than the whole list |
| Topology map | A built-in Map of resources and their relationships, grouped by namespace, node or app instance | A Topology page over one namespace, several or all, grouped by namespace, app label or any label, with PodSteer's findings on the boxes and optional observed traffic from the cluster's Prometheus |
| Opening view | A cluster dashboard you navigate | A ranked assessment of the cluster |
Every claim about Headlamp above was checked against the Headlamp repository and its official plugins and the v0.45.0 release assets and its resource map at v0.45.0 in October 2026. Projects change; if something here is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
Be honest
When Headlamp is the better choice.
Choose Headlamp when you want one dashboard the whole team reaches over a URL, with access governed centrally — PodSteer cannot do that at all, because it runs on your machine and reads your kubeconfig. Choose it too when CNCF-aligned governance is a procurement requirement, or when you want to write your own plugins: Headlamp has a real plugin API and PodSteer has none.
The other way round
When PodSteer fits.
PodSteer fits the individual engineer debugging their own clusters, where a local application with no deployment and nothing to host is simply less work, and where the integrations that matter — Argo CD, Flux, cert-manager, Trivy — are already built in rather than installed one plugin at a time. They are not really substitutes: one is shared infrastructure, the other is a tool on your laptop.
Questions
What people ask about this comparison.
Is Headlamp or PodSteer better for a team?
For one shared web UI, Headlamp: it installs in the cluster and access is governed there. PodSteer runs on each engineer's machine with their own kubeconfig, so there is nothing to host and nothing to share.
Do Headlamp and PodSteer both run on the desktop?
Yes. Headlamp's desktop application is built on Electron; PodSteer is a Go application on the operating system's own webview. Both are Apache-2.0 and need no account.