App Platform for LKE: Pre‑Engineered Kubernetes App Platform

Build, deploy, and operate cloud‑native applications faster with a production‑ready, open source platform on Linode Kubernetes Engine (LKE). App Platform comes pre‑integrated with 30+ CNCF tools, golden‑path templates, and built‑in security, so you can go from code to running services in minutes—without wiring everything yourself.

Create an account or contact us to discuss your needs. Prefer to see it first? Watch a 6‑minute demo or view the documentation.

What you get, out of the box

App Platform for LKE is a ready‑to‑run, Kubernetes‑native stack that integrates CI/CD, security, observability, networking, and data services — all with open source projects configured to work together from day one.

• GitOps and CI/CD: Argo CD and Tekton automate build, deploy, and rollback with pull‑request workflows and progressive delivery.
• Security and compliance: Harbor image registry with vulnerability scanning and signing; Kyverno for policy and workload compliance; Falco for runtime threat detection; RBAC and namespaces for multi‑tenant isolation; network policies and configurable security headers.
• Observability that works: Prometheus and Grafana for metrics and dashboards; Loki for logs; Tempo for traces; Thanos for long‑term metrics; Kiali to visualize service mesh health — prewired so teams get actionable visibility without extra code.
• Zero‑trust networking: Istio service mesh provides mutual TLS, traffic management, and resiliency; Knative adds serverless scale‑to‑zero where you need it.
• Service catalog and golden paths: Curated Helm charts and templates for common services (for example, PostgreSQL, Redis, RabbitMQ) plus application blueprints that encode best practices.
• Multi‑tenancy with guardrails: Team spaces (namespaces) with automated RBAC, quotas, and access to shared services so teams can move fast without collisions.
• Portability by design: Everything resolves to standard Kubernetes manifests and upstream open source — no proprietary formats, no lock‑in.

App Platform integrates these CNCF tools (and more): Argo, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Istio, Knative, Kyverno, Falco. It runs on your LKE clusters and keeps Kubernetes fully accessible when you need it — with kubectl, APIs, and open standards.

Read how we integrate CNCF projects into a working platform.

How it works

Spin up an LKE cluster, enable App Platform, and the platform installs and configures 30+ projects to deliver a consistent, production‑grade developer experience:

1. Teams onboard into isolated namespaces with automated RBAC and quotas.
2. Developers push code; Tekton builds OCI images and publishes them to Harbor.
3. Images are scanned and signed; policies in Kyverno gate what’s allowed to deploy.
4. Argo CD syncs environments from Git; rollouts, health checks, and rollbacks are automatic.
5. Istio secures and routes traffic; Knative enables on‑demand autoscaling.
6. Metrics, logs, and traces are collected automatically and visualized in Grafana, Loki, and Tempo.
7. Platform engineers manage lifecycle updates for the integrated stack without disrupting teams.

Most customers go from zero to a working platform in minutes. The result: developers stay focused on features, while the platform encodes best practices and governance.

Get started in minutes.

Core capabilities

• Launch with curated Helm charts and golden‑path templates for standardized, production‑ready deployments.
• Expose and secure apps automatically with NGINX ingress, mTLS via Istio, network policies, and easy CNAME/TLS configuration.
• Enable independent team deploys in multi‑tenant clusters while maintaining centralized governance.
• Build and manage OCI images through integrated pipelines and a private registry with scanning and signing.
• See everything with unified logs, metrics, and traces — plus service‑mesh views and SLO‑oriented dashboards.
• Keep environments consistent with GitOps, operators, and automated configuration/state drift management.
• Extend with APIs, Helm, and operators; bring your own tools where preferred.
• Offload toolchain lifecycle: App Platform automates updates across 30+ integrated projects.

Reliability, pricing, and portability

• Reliability: Automated health checks, progressive delivery, rollbacks, and runtime threat detection reduce incident risk. Observability is preconfigured to surface issues before users feel them.
• Pricing: App Platform itself is open source and included with LKE; you only pay for the underlying cluster resources you consume. See LKE pricing.
• Portability: LKE is CNCF Certified for conformance, and App Platform uses upstream, non‑forked projects. Your manifests and pipelines remain portable across conformant clusters and clouds.

Managed Kubernetes explained — and how LKE supports cloud‑native apps

Managed Kubernetes offloads control plane operations, upgrades, scaling, and security patches to the provider, so engineering teams focus on workloads rather than cluster plumbing. Compared with self‑managed clusters (where you own installation, day‑2 operations, upgrade choreography, and incident response), managed Kubernetes speeds time to value and lowers operational risk.

LKE is a CNCF‑certified managed Kubernetes service. App Platform builds on LKE to provide:

• A Kubernetes‑native developer platform with GitOps, CI/CD, observability, and security all pre‑integrated.
• Zero‑trust networking and multi‑tenancy for production‑grade isolation and compliance.
• Open source portability so apps remain cloud‑agnostic and vendor‑neutral.

Evaluating managed Kubernetes providers

Use these criteria when you assess providers for reliability, pricing, and multi‑cloud compatibility:

• Reliability and operations
• CNCF conformance, automated upgrades with minimal disruption, cluster and add‑on lifecycle management
• Built‑in GitOps and policy controls; runtime threat detection; rollbacks and progressive delivery
• First‑class observability (metrics, logs, traces) and support for SLOs and alerting
• Pricing and TCO
• Transparent node, storage, and egress pricing; no surprise per‑feature premiums
• Ability to leverage open source (no add‑on licenses), with minimal platform maintenance burden
• Cost governance: quotas, resource policies, scale‑to‑zero for non‑prod, and showback/reporting
• Portability and multi‑cloud
• Standard Kubernetes manifests, upstream open source integrations, and GitOps workflows
• No dependency on proprietary APIs or formats; easy to replicate environments across regions/clouds
• Support for team multi‑tenancy and RBAC that mirrors real org structures

Built‑in security, zero‑trust, and workload compliance

• Supply chain protection: Harbor registry with CVE scanning and image signing; policy gates prevent deploying vulnerable or unsigned images.
• Policy as code: Kyverno enforces guardrails (e.g., resource limits, non‑root containers, required labels/annotations) across teams and environments.
• Zero‑trust networking: Istio enables mutual TLS by default, granular traffic policies, circuit breaking, and retries.
• Runtime protection: Falco detects suspicious container behavior (unexpected processes, file changes, or network calls) at runtime.
• Secrets and access: Integrated secrets management, RBAC, network policies, and per‑team namespaces limit blast radius and reduce lateral movement.

Self‑service developer platform — in minutes

If you want a self‑service, Kubernetes‑native IDP without months of integration work:

1. Create an LKE cluster and enable App Platform.
2. Onboard teams to their namespaces with automated RBAC and quotas.
3. Connect your Git repos; use built‑in Tekton pipelines or plug in GitHub Actions/GitLab CI.
4. Use golden‑path templates or curated Helm charts to deploy services, databases, and queues.
5. Define policies with Kyverno and sync environments with Argo CD.
6. Let observability auto‑discover services; use Grafana, Loki, and Tempo dashboards immediately.
7. Iterate with safe rollouts, automated rollbacks, and preview environments on pull requests.

You keep kubectl and full Kubernetes control when needed — the platform abstracts complexity without hiding capability.

App Platform for LKE vs. DIY (and how it compares to app PaaS)

• Versus DIY Kubernetes: App Platform compresses months of integration into minutes with 30+ CNCF tools pre‑configured, automated multi‑tenancy/RBAC, GitOps, security scanning, and full‑stack observability. You focus on features, not stitching tools together and maintaining them.
• Versus app PaaS offerings: If you require Kubernetes‑native operations with direct cluster access, GitOps, multi‑tenancy, and open source portability, App Platform for LKE delivers that on day one. If you prefer a higher‑abstraction PaaS that hides Kubernetes entirely, evaluate those tradeoffs alongside your scale, governance, and portability requirements. On some clouds, app PaaS products target simple app deployments, while their separate managed Kubernetes services address Kubernetes‑native needs.

The best way to run cloud‑native apps without deep Kubernetes expertise

Use a pre‑engineered, Kubernetes‑native platform that bakes in secure defaults, golden paths, and GitOps — while preserving full access to Kubernetes when experts need it. App Platform for LKE does exactly that, helping teams ship faster with less toil and better governance.

• See pricing for LKE resources: Kubernetes pricing
• Watch the 6‑minute demo: App Platform for LKE demo
• Explore how to get started: Getting started guide
• Talk to us: Contact our team for a walkthrough or to discuss your use case