What is Okteto?

Profile

Okteto is a tool that enables development teams to create production-like Kubernetes environments for application development. The solution combines an open-source CLI with a commercial platform offering, providing automated environment provisioning, instant code synchronization, and comprehensive development workflow automation. Founded in 2019 and backed by significant venture capital, Okteto has established itself as a mature solution used by major enterprises including Monday.com and LaunchDarkly. Its core value lies in eliminating the gap between local development environments and production Kubernetes deployments.

Focus

Okteto addresses the fundamental challenge of developing microservices applications in Kubernetes environments by eliminating the need to replicate complex production infrastructure locally. The platform enables developers to write code on their local machines while running applications in full-fidelity cloud environments that mirror production configurations. This approach solves persistent issues around environment consistency, lengthy feedback loops, and the complexity of managing multiple interconnected services. The tool serves platform engineering teams and application developers, providing automated environment management while maintaining security and governance controls.

Background

Okteto emerged from its founders' experiences at Microsoft, Docker, and Atlassian, where they witnessed firsthand the friction between Kubernetes' operational benefits and its impact on developer productivity. The platform began as an open-source CLI tool before evolving into a comprehensive development environment solution. The company maintains a dual-model approach with Apache 2.0 licensed CLI and commercial platform offerings. Governed by its founding team and backed by Two Sigma Ventures, Okteto demonstrates consistent maintenance with regular feature releases and security updates.

Main features

Cloud-native development environments

The platform creates ephemeral, production-like development environments directly in Kubernetes clusters, enabling developers to work with complete application stacks including all microservices, databases, and dependencies. When developers execute the okteto up command, their Kubernetes deployment is replaced by a development container that inherits all production configurations, secrets, and volumes. This architecture ensures complete environment fidelity while allowing developers to maintain their local workflow preferences and tooling.

Bidirectional code synchronization

Okteto establishes real-time, bidirectional file synchronization between local development machines and remote containers running in Kubernetes. This core capability enables developers to edit code locally using familiar IDEs while seeing changes instantly reflected in the cloud environment without requiring container rebuilds or deployments. The synchronization mechanism handles both application code and development artifacts, ensuring consistency between local and remote environments while maintaining sub-second response times.

Automated preview environments

The platform automatically generates isolated preview environments for each pull request, enabling comprehensive testing and review of changes before production deployment. These environments provide fully functional instances of applications with proposed changes applied, accessible via unique URLs. The system handles resource provisioning, application deployment, and environment cleanup automatically, enabling both technical and non-technical stakeholders to evaluate changes in production-like conditions.