Kubernetes Add-ons

Leave the time consuming process of upgrading K8s add-ons to Fairwinds.

Overview AI Infrastructure Architecture-as-a-Service Chaos Days Case Studies

Managing Add-ons Isn’t as Simple as It Seems

To extend Kubernetes capabilities, teams rely on add-ons—essential components that handle networking, security, observability, scaling, and more. But there’s a catch:

Unreliable Updates & Security Risks

Add-ons don’t update automatically, leaving your clusters vulnerable to security threats and compatibility issues.

Complex Dependencies & Breakages

Many add-ons rely on specific configurations or other dependencies—one mismatch can lead to failures or unexpected behavior.

High Operational Overhead

Keeping add-ons patched, secure, and running smoothly requires continuous monitoring, troubleshooting, and maintenance.

Fairwinds Simplifies Add-on Management

Fairwinds takes the pain out of managing Kubernetes add-ons. Your add-ons are no longer a liability—they're a reliable part of your Kubernetes stack.

Up-to-date – Automatically patched and aligned with best practices.
Secure – Continuous monitoring to detect vulnerabilities.
Compatible – Tested for seamless integration with your infrastructure.
Optimized – Tuned for performance and efficiency.

Supported Kubernetes Add-ons

Fairwinds helps manage a wide range of Kubernetes add-ons, covering networking, security, scaling, and observability. This list is continuously growing to support the needs of clients and changing as add-ons are added or retired.

Networking & Load Balancing

external-dns Automate DNS management.

ingress-nginx Manage HTTP and HTTPS routing.

AWS Load Balancer Controller AWS Load Balancer integration.

AWS VPC CNI Native AWS networking for Kubernetes.

Oauth2 Proxy Secure authentication for apps.

Security & Compliance

cert-manager Automate TLS certificate management.

External Secrets Securely inject secrets.

Falco Runtime security monitoring.

RBAC Manager Simplify Kubernetes RBAC policies.

Cloudflare Origin CA Issuer Cloudflare Origin CA integration.

AWS Private CA Issuer AWS Private CA management.

Observability & Monitoring

Insights Agent Cluster health insights.

Datadog Agent Kubernetes monitoring and APM.

Datadog Synthetics Private Location Synthetic monitoring for reliability.

Prometheus Stack Open-source metrics monitoring.

Metrics Server Resource usage monitoring.

OTEL Operator Open Telemetry integration.

Scaling & Cost Optimization

Karpenter Automated Kubernetes node scaling.

Cluster Autoscaler Scale nodes dynamically.

Keda Event-driven autoscaling.

VPA Vertical Pod Autoscaler.

Goldilocks Optimize resource requests and limits.

Ocean Kubernetes Controller Spot instance management.

CI/CD & Workload Management

Argo CD GitOps continuous deployment.

Helm Release Pruner Cleanup outdated Helm releases.

Gitlab Runner Run CI/CD jobs on Kubernetes.

Storage & Persistent Volumes

AWS EBS CSI Driver Manage EBS volumes in Kubernetes.

AWS EFS CSI Driver Manage EFS volumes in Kubernetes.

Docker Registry Container registry for Kubernetes.

Maintenance & Upgrades

kured Automated Kubernetes node reboots.

Telepresence Simplify local Kubernetes development.

Gloo API gateway and service mesh solutions.