The Future of Kubernetes Observability

The Kubernetes ecosystem is undergoing a significant transformation, and the trends emerging at KubeCon highlight just how dynamic this space has become. Traditional Application Performance Monitoring (APM) providers are rapidly shifting focus to Kubernetes Performance Monitoring (KPM), reflecting the growing need for specialized observability in increasingly complex environments. 

This evolution offers a glimpse into the future of Kubernetes observability—and the challenges and opportunities it brings. At the last Kubecon North America, I participated in a panel called Observability in the Cloud Native Era – Why is It Still So Hard?!

One of the things that I had noted then, and I think still holds true, is that Kubernetes has revolutionized infrastructure by simplifying deployment and orchestration, but this simplicity comes with hidden complexities. While it streamlines standardization—making it easier to deploy observability layers like Fluentd or agents—it also enables rapid sprawl. Teams can spin up services effortlessly, often leading to an explosion of microservices, containers, and namespaces that are difficult to manage.

This is what I said back then: “Kubernetes makes it so simple that adding more and more layers is easy—and that’s both its strength and its challenge.” Observability in this environment requires a balance between leveraging Kubernetes’s power and mitigating the risks of over-complication.

The Shift Toward Kubernetes-Centric Solutions

At Kubecon NA that took place last week in Salt Lake City, Datadog unveiled their Kubernetes Active Remediation solution, aiming to provide curated guidance and end-to-end management of Kubernetes environments. Similarly, New Relic introduced its own Kubernetes observability solution, emphasizing streamlined operations and deeper insights tailored to the platform’s unique demands.

These moves emphasize a critical shift: traditional APM tools, long focused on logs, metrics, and traces (and sometimes events) via OpenTelemetry, are recognizing that Kubernetes is more than an infrastructure layer—it’s a cloud platform in its own right. As Kubernetes adoption grows, so do its challenges, particularly in blurring the lines between applications and infrastructure.

We’ve historically noted what we’ve seen as the most pressing gaps between traditional APM and what is now transforming into KPM, and these new moves are demonstrating that these gaps are slowly being bridged.

Why the Evolution is Happening Now

Kubernetes’s ascent from niche infrastructure solution to a foundational platform has fundamentally changed the nature of operational and development workflows––and there’s no greater proof of this than a K8s reference making it onto an NCIS television episode. The platform is now globally renowned and caters to a broad spectrum of users, from developers with limited troubleshooting expertise to seasoned DevOps professionals tasked with managing its intricacies. This diversity of use cases has exposed the limitations of existing observability tools, which often struggle to meet the demands of Kubernetes’s complexity.

For years, Kubernetes’s steep learning curve and operational challenges have prompted calls for more specialized tooling. This was one of the driving forces behind the creation of Komodor, where we recognized the urgent need for tools that simplify Kubernetes management. It’s encouraging to see established players stepping up to address these challenges, even if many are still in the early stages of delivering meaningful value.

The Road Ahead for Kubernetes Observability

While the progress is promising, the journey for most APM providers is far from over. Kubernetes’s complexity—its power to orchestrate and scale applications while demanding a high degree of expertise—remains a double-edged sword. Many traditional observability solutions are ill-equipped to handle this complexity, often falling short in providing actionable insights that bridge the gap between infrastructure and applications.

To quote my co-panelist, Charity Majors, CTO at Honeycomb: “Your infrastructure can be healthy while your users are unhappy,” Charity emphasized. Observability must center on the application and user experience rather than solely on system-level metrics. She added “We need a single source of truth to reduce complexity and improve correlation.” This shift requires dedicated tooling built to rise to the evolving Kubernetes challenge.

The emergence of Kubernetes-focused tools marks a positive step forward, but there’s still much work to be done. The future of Kubernetes observability will depend on the ability of these solutions to go beyond surface-level metrics and logs, delivering tools that empower teams to troubleshoot and optimize their environments with confidence.

Kubernetes has become a critical part of the cloud-native ecosystem, but it’s clear that its immense potential comes with equally immense challenges. As more vendors invest in Kubernetes observability, the hope is that these tools will evolve to address the platform’s complexity, making it more accessible and manageable for developers and operators alike.

For now, the shift from APM to KPM represents a welcome acknowledgment of Kubernetes’s unique demands—and an exciting glimpse into the innovation that lies ahead. The industry may still be several years away from fully solving Kubernetes’s observability challenges, but every step forward brings us closer to a future where Kubernetes is as intuitive as it is powerful.

While APM vendors’ pivot to Kubernetes observability is a logical progression, success in this space isn’t guaranteed. Kubernetes has essentially become the new “unmanaged cloud”, and its complexity makes it extraordinarily challenging to address without significant dedication and expertise (believe me, I know firsthand!). As this evolution continues, we’re likely to see new players emerge following Komodor’s lead in simplifying Kubernetes operations. The future will likely be shaped by increased collaboration between these new Kubernetes Performance Monitoring (KPM) solutions and traditional APM tools, as the industry works to help users maximize their Kubernetes investments. The key to success won’t just be monitoring capabilities, but the ability to truly simplify and demystify Kubernetes operations for teams of all sizes.