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Kubernetes Dashboard vs Infrastructure Explorer

Modern infrastructure teams are navigating growing complexity: multi-cluster Kubernetes deployments, dynamic scaling, noisy neighbors, regional compliance, and escalating customer SLAs. While the Kubernetes Dashboard is a trusted default, it was never designed to scale with you.

Infrastructure Explorer bridges the gap between visibility and action. It brings together performance data, relationships, and contextual insights across clusters, so teams spend less time jumping between tools and more time solving problems.

Below, we break down the most common Kubernetes monitoring tasks, comparing what Kubernetes Dashboard offers with how Infrastructure Explorer helps you work smarter and resolve issues faster.

1. Compare how cluster entities are displayed

Visibility into all entities and their relationships accelerates orientation and prevents misconfiguration.

Kubernetes Dashboard: Allows viewing one cluster at a time; limited cross-entity awareness.

Kubernetes Dashboard

Infrastructure Explorer: Available through the clusters table (multi-cluster view) and in the Relationships tab of a specific cluster drill-down.

Clusters table

Relationships tab

2. View cluster CPU & memory usage

Kubernetes Dashboard: Displays real-time usage per cluster but lacks context.

Dashboard memory

Infrastructure Explorer: Scalable view of CPU and memory across clusters with drill-down.

CPU and memory

Detailed usage

3. View nodes by geographical region

Kubernetes Dashboard: Shows node locations if configured.

Geo view

Infrastructure Explorer: Currently does not surface geographic info.

4. View node versions (Kubelet)

Kubernetes Dashboard: Shows node versions directly.

Node version

Infrastructure Explorer: Drill into node metadata to view versions.

Node metadata

More details

5. View pods within a cluster by status

Kubernetes Dashboard: Shows pod status.

Pod status

Infrastructure Explorer: Tracks pod states across clusters with pending/failed highlights.

Pod highlights

6. View resource-intensive pods (CPU/memory)

Kubernetes Dashboard: Shows metrics but lacks sorting and depth.

Pod metrics

Infrastructure Explorer: Sort by CPU/memory to find top consumers.

Sorted pods

7. View resource-intensive nodes (CPU/memory/disk)

Kubernetes Dashboard: Offers per-node view.

Node stats

Infrastructure Explorer: Drill-down and sort supported (no disk aggregation yet).

Node comparison

Nodes data

8. View all nodes with CPU, memory, network & disk metrics

Kubernetes Dashboard: Requires manual filtering.

K8s node

Infrastructure Explorer:
- Table view: filter by node or cluster

Table view

  • In cluster drill-down: navigate to Relationships → Nodes

Drill down

9. View Kubernetes events (filter by node/namespace/pod)

Kubernetes Dashboard: Basic filtering.

Events

Infrastructure Explorer: Advanced filtering and embedded events in drill-downs.

Events filtered

10. View node metrics over time

Kubernetes Dashboard: Limited historical graphs.

Historical

Infrastructure Explorer:

  • Aggregate CPU & memory in cluster drill-down

Aggregate

  • Live view in Relationships → Nodes

Live nodes

  • Full history in node drill-down

History

Pods data

11. View pod metrics: containers, CPU, memory, network

Kubernetes Dashboard: Per-pod view with filters.

Per pod

Infrastructure Explorer:

  • Pods table view with filters

Pods table

  • Relationships tab in cluster drill-down

Cluster pods

12. View pod metrics over time

Kubernetes Dashboard: Basic time-based filtering.

Time view

Infrastructure Explorer:

Infra time

13. View CPU & memory per pod on a node (noisy neighbor)

Kubernetes Dashboard: Historical data with pod filtering.

Noisy view

Infrastructure Explorer:

  • Cluster drill-down aggregate view

Aggregate

  • Live per-pod metrics in Relationships → Pods

Live pod view

  • Node drill-down with noisy neighbor insights

Noisy widget

  • Pod drill-down with time-series

Pod time series

Visibility that works at scale

Where Kubernetes Dashboard offers helpful real-time snapshots, Infrastructure Explorer delivers context-aware, cross-cluster intelligence. It’s not just about seeing the problem, it's about seeing it in relation to everything else that matters.

Key benefits of Infrastructure Explorer

  • Faster resolution of infrastructure incidents
  • Reduced reliance on command-line troubleshooting
  • Improved visibility across multi-cluster and multi-tenant environments
  • Less manual correlation between logs, metrics, and entities
  • A shared source of truth across Ops, SRE, and Dev teams

If you're scaling, collaborating, or just tired of cobbling together metrics from scattered tools, Infrastructure Explorer is built for your future state.