What is kube-state-metrics used for?

kube-state-metrics is a Kubernetes add-on that watches the API server and exposes metrics about the state of cluster objects like deployments, nodes and pods. It is a good fit for alerting on failing deployments, building Kubernetes capacity dashboards and feeding cluster state into Prometheus.

Is kube-state-metrics open source?

Yes. kube-state-metrics is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at kubernetes/kube-state-metrics and is written mainly in Go.

Is kube-state-metrics free?

Yes. kube-state-metrics is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host kube-state-metrics?

Yes. kube-state-metrics can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What are some alternatives to kube-state-metrics?

Similar open-source tools in the Monitoring & Observability category include VictoriaMetrics, Thanos and Cortex. SaaS products in the same category include Chronosphere, Amazon CloudWatch and Azure Monitor.

Is kube-state-metrics actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to kube-state-metrics was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v2.20.0, published on 18 August 2026. The project has 6.2k stars on GitHub.

kube-state-metrics: open-source monitoring & observability

About kube-state-metrics

kube-state-metrics is a small service from the Kubernetes project that watches the cluster's API server and turns the state of its objects into metrics. Rather than reporting on the health of control plane components, it describes things such as deployments, nodes and pods, for example how many replicas are desired and how many are available.

The metrics are produced directly from Kubernetes API objects without modification, so they have the same stability guarantees as those objects. The README warns that values may occasionally differ from what kubectl shows, because kubectl applies heuristics to make output easier to read. The data is exposed in the Prometheus format, and the repository topics list Prometheus exporter, monitoring and observability.

The project is written in Go and licensed under Apache-2.0. It runs inside the cluster as an add-on agent that you deploy yourself, so there is no hosted version. It suits platform and SRE teams that build Kubernetes dashboards and alerts on top of Prometheus.

Key features

Metrics generated from Kubernetes API objects
Prometheus-format metric exposition
State of deployments, nodes and pods
Runs as an in-cluster add-on agent
Unmodified API object data
Documented metrics reference

Good fit for

→Alerting on failing deployments
→Building Kubernetes capacity dashboards
→Feeding cluster state into Prometheus

Built with: Go; Kubernetes
Tags: kubernetes; prometheus; metrics; monitoring; observability; exporter; kube-state-metrics

kube-state-metrics: questions and answers

What is kube-state-metrics used for?: kube-state-metrics is a Kubernetes add-on that watches the API server and exposes metrics about the state of cluster objects like deployments, nodes and pods. It is a good fit for alerting on failing deployments, building Kubernetes capacity dashboards and feeding cluster state into Prometheus.
Is kube-state-metrics open source?: Yes. kube-state-metrics is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at kubernetes/kube-state-metrics and is written mainly in Go.
Is kube-state-metrics free?: Yes. kube-state-metrics is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host kube-state-metrics?: Yes. kube-state-metrics can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What are some alternatives to kube-state-metrics?: Similar open-source tools in the Monitoring & Observability category include VictoriaMetrics, Thanos and Cortex. SaaS products in the same category include Chronosphere, Amazon CloudWatch and Azure Monitor.
Is kube-state-metrics actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to kube-state-metrics was on 2 October 2026, and the latest release is v2.20.0, published on 18 August 2026. The project has 6.2k stars on GitHub.