Two good tools, built for different scopes
Both give developers golden paths on Kubernetes. The real question is whether you want an orchestrator to build your platform around, or a platform that works out of the box.
Humanitec's Platform Orchestrator reads a Score workload spec, matches each dependency against resource definitions your platform team writes, and provisions and deploys per environment through drivers, including Terraform. Score is an open, CNCF Sandbox project.
It is the engine at the center of a platform you design. CI stays in your own tooling, clusters are usually provisioned elsewhere, and the resource definitions and drivers are yours to write and maintain.
- An orchestrator you design around
- Build and CI stay in your tooling
- Resource definitions to write and maintain
- Clusters usually provisioned elsewhere
Atmosly is an internal developer platform for Kubernetes. It provisions clusters and cloud resources through guardrails, ships code with visual CI/CD and GitOps, and gives developers governed environments without a ticket.
It works out of the box: no orchestrator to design around and no drivers to write. It is fully managed and agent-based, and the SquareOps services team can implement and run it for you.
- Visual CI/CD and native GitOps
- Create or import EKS, GKE and AKS clusters
- Preview environments and cloning
- Fully managed, zero upgrade toil
Humanitec is the engine. Atmosly is the whole platform.
Instead of an orchestrator you build CI, clusters and portals around, Atmosly ships the pipeline, the clusters and the environments on one managed control plane.
The pipeline comes with the platform
With Humanitec, build and test run in CI you already own, then hand off to the orchestrator. Atmosly runs the whole path: source, build, test, deploy, verify and promote, with GitOps sync and one-click rollback.
- Visual editor or YAML, same engine
- Turn a running workload into a pipeline, ~47 min on average
- Coexists with ArgoCD, Jenkins and GitHub Actions
Clusters and resources from one catalog, with guardrails
Atmosly creates EKS, GKE or AKS clusters, or imports any conformant one, then provisions node groups, add-ons and cloud resources next to it. Every request runs through the guardrail flow you design, with no drivers to write.
- Create or import any cluster, public or private
- Cost caps, region and instance allow-lists on every request
- Auto-approve under threshold, one-click revert
Environments developers get without writing definitions
With an orchestrator, every environment type and resource rule is something the platform team writes first. In Atmosly, every PR gets its own governed environment with policies inherited from prod, and cloning a full stack is one step.
- Preview environment per PR, auto-expires on merge
- Clone services, config and datastores in one step
- Curated Helm marketplace with pinned versions
Humanitec vs Atmosly, capability by capability
We kept Humanitec's genuine wins in the table. They're marked so you can see them at a glance.
Humanitec's strengths are real for the job it's built for: an open workload spec and rule-based resource orchestration. Atmosly's case is that CI/CD, clusters and environments come built in and managed.
Which one is right for your team?
It depends on scope, and on who you want running the platform.
- You are designing a bespoke IDP around an orchestrator
- An open workload spec like Score is a requirement
- Rule-based resource matching per environment is the priority
- Your CI and clusters are already handled elsewhere
- You have a platform team to own definitions and drivers
- You want CI/CD, clusters and environments in one platform
- You'd rather not design and maintain an orchestrator setup
- Developers need preview environments without filing tickets
- Developers need scoped, audited kubectl access
- You'd like a partner (SquareOps) to implement and run it
If you are building a bespoke IDP around an open workload spec and rule-based resource matching, Humanitec is a powerful orchestrator. If you want golden paths with CI/CD, clusters and environments built in and managed, that's Atmosly.
Connect a cluster freeFrom Humanitec to Atmosly in an afternoon
No big-bang migration. Connect read-only, see value first, and move workloads over one at a time, keeping the clusters, Git repos and Helm charts you already run.
Rather not do it yourself? The SquareOps services team can run the migration and day-2 operations for you.
Managed Kubernetes servicesWhat teams comparing Humanitec ask
Not covered? An engineer replies within one business day.
consult@squareops.comHumanitec's Platform Orchestrator is an engine you build an internal developer platform around: it matches a Score workload spec to resource definitions and deploys per environment, while CI stays in your own tooling. Atmosly is a ready-to-use platform for Kubernetes with CI/CD, cluster provisioning, environments and guardrails built in.
Yes. Developers request clusters and resources from a catalog, ship through a standard pipeline and get preview environments, all with your policies pre-applied. The difference is that Atmosly ships those paths ready to use instead of asking you to design them.
Atmosly does not use Score as its workload spec. Services are described as Atmosly blueprints, which it can build from workloads already running, and your Helm charts and Git repos stay as they are.
You can run them side by side during a move, for example by onboarding new services to Atmosly while existing ones stay on the orchestrator. Most teams settle on one deployment path per service so ownership stays clear.
Not very, and it is incremental. Connect a cluster read-only, turn one running service into a blueprint and pipeline, then move the rest one workload at a time. The SquareOps services team can run the migration for you.
Any conformant Kubernetes cluster: EKS, GKE, AKS or self-managed, public or private, including on-prem and bare-metal. You import the cluster you already run, read-only, in minutes.
No. It runs on your own clusters on standard Kubernetes, Helm and Git, so what you build stays portable.
It is fully managed and agent-based, and read-only by default, so there is no control plane for you to host or upgrade. Enterprise customers can self-host the control plane in their own VPC, and SquareOps can run day-2 operations for you.