Profile

Giant Swarm is a fully managed Kubernetes platform that abstracts operational complexity while maintaining enterprise control and flexibility. Built on open-source foundations with Apache 2.0 licensing, it provides a comprehensive solution for managing cloud-native infrastructure at scale. The platform combines cluster lifecycle management, observability, and security capabilities with 24/7 expert support. Its value proposition centers on enabling organizations to leverage Kubernetes without building and maintaining internal platform engineering expertise, offering a bridge between infrastructure complexity and developer productivity.

Focus

Giant Swarm addresses the fundamental challenge of managing Kubernetes infrastructure at enterprise scale. The platform eliminates the operational burden of maintaining multiple Kubernetes clusters while preserving flexibility and control. It serves platform engineering teams who need to provide consistent, secure, and reliable infrastructure across multiple environments and cloud providers. Key benefits include reduced operational overhead, standardized cluster lifecycle management, and the ability to focus on strategic initiatives rather than infrastructure maintenance. The solution particularly suits organizations requiring multi-cluster management with strong security and compliance controls.

Background

Giant Swarm emerged from the founders' experience at Adcloud, where they processed over ten thousand transactions per second and found existing PaaS solutions inadequate for their scale. Founded in 2014, the company transformed their internal infrastructure management solution into a product as Kubernetes gained prominence. The platform has demonstrated its capabilities through notable deployments, including Adidas's e-commerce platform and Vodafone's global cloud-native transformation. The company remains independently owned by its original founders, maintaining active development with approximately 80 employees and a strong open-source commitment.

Main features

Dual-cluster architecture with centralized management

The platform implements a clear separation between management and workload execution through a dual-cluster model. The management cluster serves as the control plane, hosting operators and controllers for orchestrating workload cluster lifecycle management using Cluster API. Workload clusters maintain complete isolation, running in dedicated network environments with separate cloud provider accounts when required. This architecture enables organizations to scale Kubernetes operations while maintaining security boundaries and operational oversight, supporting sophisticated disaster recovery and geographic distribution strategies.

GitOps-driven configuration management

The platform employs a sophisticated layered configuration approach managed through GitOps principles using Flux. This system enables platform teams to define baseline configurations across all clusters, overlay environment-specific settings, and allow cluster-level customization while maintaining consistency. Configuration management supports inheritance and composition patterns, reducing duplication while providing clarity about applied settings. The GitOps workflow ensures all changes are version-controlled, peer-reviewed, and easily reversible, with automated reconciliation maintaining desired state.

Comprehensive observability and security framework

The platform integrates a complete observability stack based on the Grafana LGTM suite, providing unified visibility across infrastructure, applications, and security domains. The multi-tenant observability system enables teams to access relevant metrics, logs, and traces while maintaining strict data isolation. Security controls implement defense-in-depth principles, including cluster isolation, network policies, Pod Security Standards, and RBAC integration with enterprise identity providers. The framework supports sophisticated access control models mapping organizational structure to Kubernetes permissions.