Cluster API vs Rancher
| Cluster API | Rancher | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Free trial | No | No |
| Paid from | — | Free |
| Open source | No | No |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux | api, Linux, self-hosted, Web |
| Control plane management | customer-managed | — |
| Supported environments | AWS, Azure, Azure Stack HCI, CloudStack, DigitalOcean, GCP, IBM Cloud, KubeVirt, Metal3, Nutanix, OCI, OpenStack, Outscale, Proxmox, vSphere, VMware Cloud Director, and other provider environments | — |
| Cluster provisioning | Yes | — |
| Multi-cluster management | Yes | Yes |
| Upgrade management | Yes | — |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
Both are listed in Best Kubernetes Management Platforms. On Inferse, Rancher scores higher on our published basis.