Grafana vs Lens vs K9s vs kubectl: What’s the Best Tool to Monitor Kubernetes Pods?

Kubernetes offers many ways to observe what’s happening in your cluster, but not all tools are created equal. In this post, we compare Grafana’s Kubernetes Pods dashboard to other popular tools like Lens, K9s, and the good old kubectl CLI. If you're new to Kubernetes, this guide will help you understand which tool to use and when. 

Grafana Kubernetes Pods Dashboard 

Grafana's dashboard offers historical, visual insights into pod performance using data from Prometheus. It’s perfect for monitoring trends, comparing resource usage to limits, and catching early signs of instability like restarts or OOM kills. It's particularly useful for developers who want to understand how their application performs over time. While it's not interactive (you can’t edit resources), it excels at visual observability. 

Lens 

Lens is a Kubernetes IDE with a user-friendly GUI. It provides access to pod logs, metrics, YAML configurations, and lets you edit resources. It shows recent CPU/memory metrics and integrates with Prometheus if available. It's ideal for those who want to explore and interact with their clusters through a graphical interface, especially during development and debugging sessions. 

K9s 

K9s is a terminal UI that makes working with Kubernetes via keyboard lightning fast. It’s like a turbo-charged CLI. It shows live resource usage and lets you navigate pods, logs, and containers quickly. However, it doesn’t provide historical trends or in-depth visual analytics. It's best suited for those who live in the terminal and want fast, interactive access to their cluster. 

Kubectl 

The command-line tool for Kubernetes purists. With kubectl, you can do everything—but manually. Want pod status? Run kubectl get pods. Want to see resource usage? Run kubectl top pods. There’s no visualisation or trend data, but it’s flexible and powerful if you know the syntax. It’s essential for scripting and automation but can be overwhelming for beginners. 

So Which Should You Use? 

• Use Grafana when you want detailed, visual metrics over time. 
• Use Lens when you want a user-friendly interface to explore and interact with your cluster. 

• Use K9s when you love the terminal and want to move fast. 

• Use kubectl for scripting, automation, or deep cluster control. 

Each of these tools complements the others. For example, you might use Lens to edit deployments, K9s to inspect logs quickly, and Grafana to monitor performance over time. Together, they create a robust toolkit for understanding and managing your Kubernetes environment. 

Each tool has its strengths, and they’re often used together. Grafana stands out for monitoring and understanding pod performance over time, which is why it's a great complement to interactive tools like Lens or K9s. If you’re just starting out, Grafana helps you see what’s going on—no command memorisation required. Whether you're debugging a problem or just learning the ropes, the right tool can make all the difference.