---
## What is vCluster?
**vCluster** creates **Tenant Clusters** — fully isolated Kubernetes environments that run on top of a Control Plane Cluster, on dedicated infrastructure, or standalone on bare metal. Each tenant gets its own API server, CRDs, and RBAC, with a cluster experience indistinguishable from a dedicated Kubernetes cluster.
Built for production. Trusted in production. **40M+ Tenant Clusters deployed** by teams at Adobe, CoreWeave, NVIDIA, Lintasarta, Atlan, Deloitte, and hundreds of AI clouds, AI factories, and Fortune 500 platform organizations.
**[CNCF Certified Kubernetes — Distribution](https://www.cncf.io/training/certification/software-conformance/)** and **[Kubernetes AI Conformant](https://github.com/cncf/k8s-ai-conformance/tree/main/v1.35/vcluster-private-nodes)** (v1.35) — every Tenant Cluster is upstream Kubernetes with no vendor lock‑in, validated for portable AI/ML workloads (training, inference, agentic).
> **The public-cloud experience, on your own infrastructure.** Give every team the Kubernetes they need — with strict isolation, hardware-aware scheduling, and zero tenant sprawl — whether you run one region or 100K GPUs.
---
## 🚀 Quick Start
```bash
# Install vCluster CLI
brew install loft-sh/tap/vcluster
# Create a Tenant Cluster
vcluster create my-vcluster --namespace team-x
# Use kubectl as usual — you're now in your Tenant Cluster
kubectl get namespaces
```
**Prerequisites:** A running Kubernetes cluster and `kubectl` configured. Or go straight to bare metal with [vCluster Standalone](https://www.vcluster.com/docs/vcluster/deploy/control-plane/binary/).
👉 **[Full Quickstart Guide](https://www.vcluster.com/docs/get-started)**
### 🐳 Run Locally with Docker — [vind](https://github.com/loft-sh/vind)
No Kubernetes cluster? Run vCluster directly on Docker with **vind** (vCluster in Docker) — like `kind`, but with the full vCluster feature set (UI, sleep/resume, LoadBalancer, image cache):
```bash
vcluster create my-vcluster --driver docker
kubectl get namespaces
```
### 🎮 Try in the Browser
[](https://killercoda.com/vcluster)
### 🎁 vCluster Free Tier
Real usage, not a gated demo. Unlimited Tenant Clusters up to 64 CPUs / 32 GPUs, Private Nodes, Auto Nodes, Standalone, and the Platform UI — for free. **[Get Started Free →](https://www.vcluster.com/free)**
---
## 🆕 What's New
| Version | Feature | Description |
|---------|---------|-------------|
| **v0.33** | [Enterprise Reliability & Storage](https://github.com/loft-sh/vcluster/releases/tag/v0.33.0) | Automatic leaf-cert regeneration, Azure Blob snapshot destinations, workload-level sleep annotations |
| **v0.32** | [Docker Driver & DRA](https://github.com/loft-sh/vcluster/releases/tag/v0.32.0) | Run vCluster on Docker, Dynamic Resource Allocation (DRA) for GPU workloads, in-place pod resizing |
| **v0.31** | [Snapshots & Cross-Cluster APIs](https://github.com/loft-sh/vcluster/releases/tag/v0.31.0) | Expanded snapshot/restore lifecycle, PDBs for Tenant Cluster control planes, cross-cluster resource proxying |
| **v0.30** | [vCluster VPN & Netris Integration](https://www.vcluster.com/releases/en/changelog/platform-v45-and-vcluster-v030-secure-cloud-bursting-on-prem) | Tailscale-powered overlay networking and automated hardware isolation via Netris |
| **v0.27–v0.29** | [Architecture Foundations](https://www.vcluster.com/docs/vcluster/introduction/architecture/) | [Private Nodes](https://www.vcluster.com/docs/vcluster/deploy/worker-nodes/private-nodes) (v0.27, CNI/CSI isolation), [Auto Nodes](https://www.vcluster.com/docs/vcluster/deploy/worker-nodes/private-nodes/auto-nodes/) (v0.28, Karpenter autoscaling), [Standalone Mode](https://www.vcluster.com/docs/vcluster/deploy/control-plane/binary/) (v0.29, bare metal / no Control Plane Cluster) |
👉 **[Full Changelog](https://www.vcluster.com/releases)**
---
## 🎯 Use Cases
| Use Case | Description | Learn More |
|----------|-------------|------------|
| **AI Factory** | Run AI on-prem where your data and GPUs live. Give every team the GPU access they need without multiplying infrastructure. | [View →](https://www.vcluster.com/solutions/ai-factory) |
| **AI Cloud Providers** | Launch a hyperscaler-like Kubernetes experience for your GPU customers. Isolated, production-grade, in minutes. | [View →](https://www.vcluster.com/solutions/gpu-cloud-providers) |
| **Internal GPU Platform** | Maximize GPU utilization without sacrificing isolation. Self-service Kubernetes for AI/ML teams. | [View →](https://www.vcluster.com/solutions/internal-gpu-platform) |
| **Bare Metal Kubernetes** | Run production Kubernetes on bare metal with zero VMs. Isolation without expensive virtualization overhead. | [View →](https://www.vcluster.com/solutions/bare-metal-kubernetes) |
| **Software Vendors** | Ship Kubernetes-native products. Each customer gets their own isolated Tenant Cluster. | [View →](https://www.vcluster.com/solutions/software-vendors) |
| **Environments & Cost Savings** | Consolidate clusters, pause idle workloads with sleep mode, and cut Kubernetes cost at scale. | [View →](https://www.vcluster.com/cost-savings) |
---
## 🏗️ Architectures
vCluster supports multiple deployment architectures. Each builds on the previous, offering progressively stronger isolation — from dense shared infrastructure to fully standalone bare metal.
### Architecture Comparison
| | **Shared Nodes** | **Dedicated Nodes** | **Private Nodes** | **Standalone** |
|---|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|
| **Control Plane Cluster** | Required | Required | Required | Not Required |
| **Node Isolation** | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| **CNI/CSI Isolation** | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Bare Metal Ready** | — | — | ✅ | ✅ |
| **Best For** | Dev/test, density | Production tenants | Compliance, GPU | AI factories, edge |
👉 **[Full Architecture Guide](https://www.vcluster.com/docs/vcluster/introduction/architecture/)**
### Minimal Configuration
🔹 Shared Nodes — Maximum density, minimum cost
Tenant Clusters share the Control Plane Cluster's nodes. Workloads run as regular pods in a namespace.
```yaml
sync:
fromHost:
nodes:
enabled: false # Uses pseudo nodes
```
🔹 Dedicated Nodes — Isolated compute on labeled node pools
Tenant Clusters get their own set of labeled nodes on the Control Plane Cluster. Workloads are isolated but still managed by the Control Plane Cluster.
```yaml
sync:
fromHost:
nodes:
enabled: true
selector:
labels:
tenant: my-tenant
```
🔹 Private Nodes v0.27+ — Full CNI/CSI isolation
External nodes join the Tenant Cluster directly with their own CNI, CSI, and networking stack. Complete workload isolation from the Control Plane Cluster.
```yaml
privateNodes:
enabled: true
controlPlane:
service:
spec:
type: NodePort
```
🔹 vCluster Standalone v0.29+ — No Control Plane Cluster required
Run vCluster without any Control Plane Cluster. Deploy the Virtual Control Plane directly on bare metal or VMs. The highest level of isolation — vCluster becomes the cluster.
```yaml
controlPlane:
standalone:
enabled: true
joinNode:
enabled: true
privateNodes:
enabled: true
```
⚡ Auto Nodes v0.28+ — Karpenter-powered dynamic autoscaling
Automatically provision and deprovision private nodes based on workload demand. Works across public cloud, private cloud, hybrid, and bare metal environments.
```yaml
autoNodes:
enabled: true
nodeProvider:
privateNodes:
enabled: true
```
---
## ✨ Key Features
| Feature | Description |
|---------|-------------|
| **🎛️ Isolated Virtual Control Plane** | Each Tenant Cluster gets its own API server, controller manager, and data store — complete Kubernetes API isolation |
| **🔗 Shared Platform Stack** | Leverage the Control Plane Cluster's CNI, CSI, ingress, and other infrastructure — no duplicate platform components |
| **🔒 Strong Tenant Isolation** | Tenants get admin access inside their Tenant Cluster while having minimal permissions on the Control Plane Cluster |
| **🔄 Resource Syncing** | Bidirectional sync of any Kubernetes resource — pods, services, secrets, configmaps, CRDs, and more |
| **💤 Sleep Mode** | Pause inactive Tenant Clusters to save resources. Instant wake when needed |
| **🖥️ Bare Metal & Standalone** | Run with or without a Control Plane Cluster. Purpose-built for AI factories and on-prem GPU fleets |
| **🧩 Integrations** | Native support for cert-manager, external-secrets, KubeVirt, Istio, and metrics-server |
| **📊 High Availability** | Multiple replicas with leader election. Embedded etcd or external databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, RDS) |
---
## 🌐 The vCluster Platform
vCluster is the foundation of a broader platform for running production Kubernetes and AI infrastructure on your own hardware — from a single rack to 100K-GPU supercomputers.
| Product | What it does |
|---------|--------------|
| **[vCluster](https://www.vcluster.com)** | Tenant Clusters — Virtual Control Planes with API, data, and (optionally) network isolation |
| **[vNode](https://www.vnode.com/)** | Runtime-level tenant isolation. Kernel-enforced boundaries (seccomp, cgroups, namespaces, AppArmor) without VM overhead |
| **[vMetal](https://www.vmetal.ai/)** | Zero-touch bare metal provisioning for GPU fleets. Turns GPU racks into a cloud platform |
| **[Netris](https://www.vcluster.com/solutions/netris-kubernetes-network-automation)** *(integration)* | Hardware-enforced network isolation via programmatic VLANs, VRFs, and ACLs |
Together these deliver the four layers of an AI factory: **Certified Stacks → Tenant Isolation → Tenant Clusters → GPU Infrastructure Operations** — the same pattern used to run production AI on hundreds of GPU clouds and Fortune 500 on-prem platforms.
---
## 🏢 Trusted By
**CNCF Certified Kubernetes — Distribution** · **Kubernetes AI Conformant** (v1.35)
