Introduction

Kardinal is an open-source framework for creating extremely lightweight ephemeral development environments within a shared Kubernetes cluster. Between dev environments, Kardinal shares every microservice or database that can be feasibly be shared, optimizing for cloud costs and fast spin-up/tear-down.

To see how much you would save using Kardinal for your particular architecture, check out the cost saving calculator.

Why choose Kardinal?

• Ephemeral Environments: Spin up a new environment exactly when you need it, and just as quickly spin it down when you’re done.
• Minimal Resource Usage: Only deploy the services you’re actively working on. Kardinal takes care of the rest, so you don’t waste resources.
• Flexible Environment Types: Whether you need to test a single service or an entire application, Kardinal has you covered:
  • Single-Service Flows: Perfect for when you’re tweaking just one service.
  • Multi-Service Flows: Ideal for when your feature involves multiple services.
  • State-Isolated Flows: Great for features that need their own isolated databases or caches.
  • Full Application Flows: For those times when you need end-to-end testing with full isolation.
• Cost Savings: Kardinal can help you save big by avoiding unnecessary resource duplication. It’s a game-changer for teams looking to cut costs. Check out this calculator to run your own calculations.
• Open Source: Kardinal is open source, so use it however fits best within your workflows

Get started

• Check out our installation guide to install Kardinal and get running.
• If you're not ready to install anything yet, but want to test Kardinal, head over to our playground for a demo.