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KubeGlass

KubeGlass vs Lens, OpenLens and Freelens

Lens is a desktop app for Kubernetes from Mirantis. It is free for students, hobbyists and small organizations, and organizations with more than $10 million in revenue or funding need a paid plan. Mirantis now calls it Lens K8S IDE; older pages call it Lens Desktop. Freelens is an MIT-licensed desktop app forked from Open Lens, the open-source core Lens was built on, with no account and no paid plans. KubeGlass is a web console that runs as one binary on your computer or in a cluster.

The open-source Open Lens repository is retired: its README says the open-source version “has been retired and is no longer maintained”. Freelens carries that code forward.

OpenLens

Section titled “OpenLens”

OpenLens was the name of the free builds of that open-source code, from the MuhammedKalkan/OpenLens repository, which many people used instead of Lens. They have stopped too. The repository’s README says: “Lens Closed its source code. So please do not expect any more updates.” Its last release is v6.5.2-366, from 30 June 2023. If you used OpenLens, the choices are Freelens, which keeps the same app going, or a different tool such as KubeGlass, which runs in a browser instead of a desktop app.

At a glance

Section titled “At a glance”
Feature KubeGlass Lens Freelens
License AGPL-3.0 Proprietary, built on Open Lens (MIT) MIT
Cost Free Personal plan free for students, hobbyists and small organizations. Organizations with over $10 million in annual revenue or funding need Plus, Pro or Enterprise, from $25 per person per month billed annually Free
Account None A Lens ID, to activate the app None
Runs as A binary that opens the UI in your browser, a container, or a Helm chart in a cluster A desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux; latest release 2026.10.51501, in Homebrew on 6 October 2026 A desktop app for macOS, Windows and Linux on x64 and arm64; latest release v1.10.3, 7 July 2026
Shared deployment for a team Yes, one in each cluster, with each person signed in and acting as themselves No web version. Teamwork (Pro and Enterprise) gives remote access to clusters from each person’s app No
Several clusters Every kubeconfig context in one list with its problem counts, and lists and search across several at once; installed in a cluster, only that cluster Kubeconfig files in ~/.kube and folders you add; EKS and AKS discovery and the Hotbar need a paid plan Kubeconfig files and folders, with the catalog and Hotbar
Live updates Watches Watches Watches
Logs Merged across a workload’s pods, previous run, search One pod, or all pods of a Deployment in one stream, with resource names on each line if you turn them on; a switcher for pods and containers One pod at a time; a third-party extension merges pods
Shells Pod exec, debug containers, node shells (opt-in), a shell on your computer (opt-in) A built-in terminal and pod shells A terminal with bundled kubectl and Helm, pod shells, attach and node shells
Files Browse a container’s folders, download files and folders, and upload files of up to 256 MiB. A file goes either way in an image without tar No file actions in the pod menu; a request to copy files into a pod is open No; a request to download a container’s files is open
Port forward Pods and Services, when KubeGlass runs on your computer Yes Yes
YAML Edit with a server-side dry run and a diff; a Secret’s or ConfigMap’s values decoded, one key at a time An editor; the side-by-side diff (Advanced editor) needs a paid plan An editor; a Secret’s values decoded on its details panel, where you can change and save them
Helm Releases, history, values, upgrade, rollback, uninstall, chart catalog Charts and releases, with upgrade and rollback Charts and releases, with upgrade and rollback
Argo CD and Flux Built in Built in, on paid plans Flux through an official extension; Argo CD through a third-party one
Metrics metrics-server or Prometheus, PromQL, Alertmanager alerts, rightsizing Lens Metrics installs Prometheus for you, or it uses yours; cost monitoring needs a paid plan Your Prometheus, or metrics-server
Access review An access matrix for any user, group or ServiceAccount, and who can do something Lists of roles and bindings; Security Center (paid) reports risky roles Lists of roles and bindings
Security Best-practice checks, certificates, Trivy Operator reports, images, Gatekeeper and Kyverno violations Security Center (paid), which needs the Trivy Operator Not documented
Relationships A tree of related objects on each object’s page, and a map that marks the chain leading to a broken object Not documented A resource map extension
Change history Changes to workloads, Services, Ingresses, config and autoscalers, and the rollouts and Helm releases from before KubeGlass ran, with revert after a dry run. It lists those kinds, and Secrets for Helm, with KubeGlass’s own credentials: in every namespace, or in up to 25 namespaces when the credentials allow only some No; the editor’s revert only discards unsaved edits No
Extending it An extensions file for actions (links, and commands it runs in a local shell or copies), keys, sidebar links, Grafana panels, list columns and palette names Extensions: TypeScript packages on npm. Lens creates the project and can open it in your AI coding tool, and has a marketplace to install them from. Installing and running them needs Plus, Pro or Enterprise; anyone may browse Extensions installed from npm
Keyboard k9s-style keys in every list, and a command palette A command palette and shortcuts A command palette and shortcuts
AI An MCP server with 41 read-only tools Ask AI and a read-only MCP server, on paid plans Extensions, such as the AI extension
Telemetry No usage telemetry; OpenTelemetry tracing to your own collector if you turn it on Usage tracking and error reports, which you can turn off in Preferences Sentry and the telemetry setting removed

Choose Lens if

Section titled “Choose Lens if”
  • You want a desktop app with commercial support from Mirantis and features such as Security Center, cost monitoring, Teamwork and extensions in one subscription.
  • Your organization already pays for Lens, or qualifies for the free Personal plan.
  • You want Lens to install a Prometheus stack in a cluster for you.
  • You prefer a desktop app to a browser tab.

Choose Freelens if

Section titled “Choose Freelens if”
  • You want a free desktop app in the Lens style, with no account.
  • You want extensions without a paid plan; Freelens keeps the open-source extension system, with official extensions for Flux, a resource map and AI.
  • You work on several kubeconfig files locally and want a desktop catalog and Hotbar.

Choose KubeGlass if

Section titled “Choose KubeGlass if”
  • You want a browser UI, or one deployment for a team, where each person signs in and is limited by their own RBAC.
  • You want Argo CD, Flux, Argo Rollouts and Helm without a subscription or extensions.
  • You want YAML diffs before applying and change history with revert, without a paid plan, or logs merged across a workload’s pods, which Freelens doesn’t have built in.
  • You want to browse a container’s files, download them and upload files into it from the UI, which Lens and Freelens don’t have built in.
  • You review access: who may do something, and what any user, group or ServiceAccount may do.
  • You want k9s-style keys.
  • You want an MCP server for AI clients without a paid plan.

Moving from Lens or Freelens

Section titled “Moving from Lens or Freelens”

  1. Install KubeGlass and start it. It reads ~/.kube/config, or every file in KUBECONFIG:

    Terminal window
    brew install kubeglass/tap/kubeglass
    kubeglass

  2. Lens and Freelens can also watch folders of kubeconfig files. KubeGlass reads one kubeconfig (or the files in KUBECONFIG); to add the others, paste them under Clusters › Add cluster, or have it read every kubeconfig in a folder. Either way KubeGlass merges them into the kubeconfig it reads.

  3. Clusters that sign in through an exec plugin, such as the AWS or gcloud CLI, work as they do in Lens, as long as the CLI is installed where KubeGlass runs.

  4. If you installed Lens Metrics, that Prometheus stays in the cluster. KubeGlass looks for a Prometheus with node metrics in the cluster; if it doesn’t find the one you want, set KUBEGLASS_PROMETHEUS_URL. See Security and monitoring.

  5. Lens’s Hotbar has no equivalent. Pin clusters in Clusters › All clusters and namespaces in the namespace picker.

Sources

Section titled “Sources”

Checked on 5 October 2026; OpenLens on 6 October 2026; Lens’s latest release, logs and extensions on 7 October 2026; files and Secrets on 9 October 2026.