A UI can provide a lower entry barrier and allows for quicker iterations. But from a long term maintenance perspective, a UI managed platform is not sustainable. I'm trying to combine the best of both worlds, by having all the benefits of a UI in the beginning, but the power and control of infrastructure as code long-term.
With the Kubestack framework I've been maintaining an open-source Terraform framework, and Kubernetes Terraform provider for ~3 years now. But while the framework provides proven, reusable modules, it still requires writing 100s of lines of Terraform code to call the modules from your root module with the correct configuration.
Kubestack Cloud allows users to define the root module in the UI. It provides guidance on a number of high level architecture decisions, like how many environments and how changes are validated and promoted between these environments. It then lets users drill down to configure cloud providers (AKS, EKS or GKE), node pools and cluster services. Once done, everything can be exported to production grade Terraform code for free.
The generated Terraform code is human-readable and easy to maintain long term, because, again, Kubestack Cloud "just" generates the root module that calls the existing open-source framework modules.
Kubestack Cloud is still in the MVP stage. But give it a try and let me know what you think.
More details here: https://www.kubestack.com/framework/documentation/gitops-pro...
Last, Kubestack is native AKS, EKS or GKE. There is no meta control plane in between, like with Rancher.
