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derailed/k9s

A terminal UI for navigating, observing and managing applications across your Kubernetes clusters.

Open-source alternative to:Lens

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What is it?

K9s is a terminal UI for Kubernetes. It continuously watches cluster resources and lets you browse, inspect and act on them from a keyboard-driven interface, without typing long kubectl commands for every step.

The interface supports viewing pods, deployments and other resource types, with features such as log viewing, YAML and describe views, container shells, port forwarding, filtering by name or label, and resource editing. Users can define custom column views, command aliases, hotkeys and plugins, and can run in read-only mode to disable modification commands.

K9s is written in Go and runs on Linux, macOS and Windows. It can be installed through common package managers such as Homebrew, Scoop, Chocolatey, pacman and snap, or run as a Docker container with a mounted kubeconfig.

Key features

  • 01Watches cluster resources continuously and refreshes views as they change.
  • 02View logs, YAML, describe output and container shells from the same interface.
  • 03Filter resources by name, regex or label selector, and jump between namespaces and contexts.
  • 04Port-forward pods, services and containers directly from the UI.
  • 05Customize columns, command aliases, hotkeys and skins through config files.
  • 06Read-only mode disables delete, kill and edit commands.

Use cases

  • Debugging a failing pod by tailing its logs and opening a shell without leaving the terminal.
  • Monitoring deployments and their rollout status across several clusters.
  • Giving team members read-only visibility into a production cluster.
  • Quickly finding and inspecting resources in a large namespace using filters.

Quick start

  1. 1

    Install via Homebrew (macOS or Linux)

    brew install derailed/k9s/k9s
  2. 2

    Run K9s

    k9s

Things to know

  • Requires an existing Kubernetes cluster and a valid kubeconfig to be useful.
  • Recommends Kubernetes 1.28+ and needs a 256-color terminal.

In collections

CLI & terminal tools

Topics

#kubernetes#terminal#cli#tui#devops#golang#k8s-management#go#k8s#k8s-cluster

FAQ

What is k9s?
A terminal UI for navigating, observing and managing applications across your Kubernetes clusters. K9s is a terminal UI for Kubernetes. It continuously watches cluster resources and lets you browse, inspect and act on them from a keyboard-driven interface, without typing long kubectl commands for every step.
Is k9s free to use? What license does it have?
k9s is open source under the Apache-2.0 license. Check the license terms before using it in commercial products.
Is k9s still maintained?
Actively maintained. The last commit to k9s was on Oct 22, 2026.
What can I use k9s for?
Debugging a failing pod by tailing its logs and opening a shell without leaving the terminal. Monitoring deployments and their rollout status across several clusters. Giving team members read-only visibility into a production cluster. Quickly finding and inspecting resources in a large namespace using filters.
How do I install k9s?
Install via Homebrew (macOS or Linux): brew install derailed/k9s/k9s Run K9s: k9s
Where can I get k9s?
The source code and installation instructions are on GitHub: https://github.com/derailed/k9s

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