Two good tools, built for different stages
Both run on your Kubernetes clusters. The real question is whether you need a better inner loop, or one platform from pull request to production.
Okteto is a development environment platform for Kubernetes. Each developer gets an isolated namespace with the full service graph and code synced from their editor, and every pull request can get a shareable preview environment. It now also targets environments for AI coding agents.
Okteto states that it is not a production hosting platform. Production CI/CD, promotion, and cluster and database provisioning stay with other tools. It runs as SaaS, self-hosted, or in your own cloud account.
- Inner-loop and preview focused
- Does not deploy to production
- No cluster or database provisioning
- Production governance lives 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 per-PR preview environments with policies inherited from prod.
The same platform promotes that code to production with approval gates, post-deploy checks and one-click rollback. It is fully managed, and SquareOps can implement and run it for you.
- Preview environments that inherit prod policies
- Production CI/CD with promotion and rollback
- Governed provisioning for clusters and resources
- Environment cloning for full stacks
Okteto stops before production. Atmosly goes all the way.
Keep Okteto for the inner loop if your developers love it. Atmosly covers the path from merged PR to production, and the infrastructure underneath.
The pipeline that takes a merged PR to production
A preview shows the change; Atmosly ships it. Build and test, deploy to staging, then promote to production with approval gates, post-deploy checks and one-click rollback.
- Multi-stage promotion with approvals and audit
- Rolling, blue-green and canary deploys
- Coexists with ArgoCD, Jenkins and GitHub Actions
Infrastructure from a catalog, with guardrails
Okteto runs on a cluster you already have. Atmosly creates EKS, GKE or AKS clusters, node groups, add-ons, databases, caches and queues from a catalog, through the guardrails you set.
- 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
Production rules developers can't skip
Previews are low-risk; production is not. Every Atmosly deploy, provisioning request and terminal session runs through RBAC and your guardrail policies, and lands in one audit trail.
- Required settings on every provisioning request
- Fine-grained RBAC with SAML SSO
- Audited web terminal for scoped kubectl
Okteto vs Atmosly, capability by capability
We kept Okteto's genuine wins in the table. They're marked so you can see them at a glance.
Okteto's strengths are real: the inner loop and preview environments are its core, with flexible hosting and a free starter tier. Atmosly's case is everything from merge to production, plus the infrastructure underneath, fully managed.
Which one is right for your team?
It depends on scope, and on who you want running the platform.
- Fast inner-loop development is the priority
- Developers want code synced to a remote cluster
- You only need dev and preview environments
- Production delivery is already handled elsewhere
- You want to self-host or run in your own cloud
- You want previews and production on one platform
- Previews should inherit policies from prod
- Clusters and databases should come from a governed catalog
- You want one audit trail from preview to production
- You'd like a partner (SquareOps) to implement and run it
If a fast inner loop and dev environments are the priority, Okteto is excellent, and it pairs well with a delivery platform. If you want previews, provisioning and production delivery on one platform, that's Atmosly.
Connect a cluster freeFrom Okteto to Atmosly in an afternoon
No big-bang migration. Keep Okteto for the inner loop if you like it, connect Atmosly read-only, and move production delivery over one service at a time.
Rather not do it yourself? The SquareOps services team can run the migration and day-2 operations for you.
Managed Kubernetes servicesWhat teams comparing Okteto ask
Not covered? An engineer replies within one business day.
consult@squareops.comOkteto is a development environment platform: remote dev environments with code sync and per-PR previews, and it does not run production. Atmosly is an internal developer platform that also gives you per-PR previews, then provisions infrastructure and ships code to production through governed pipelines.
Yes. Every pull request can get its own environment in about two minutes, with policies inherited from production, and it expires on merge. Atmosly does not replace Okteto's inner-loop code sync, which is Okteto's specialty.
Yes. Teams can keep Okteto for inner-loop development and use Atmosly for provisioning and production delivery on the same clusters.
It is incremental. Connect a cluster read-only, ship one workload through an Atmosly pipeline, then move preview environments over when you are ready. The SquareOps services team can run the migration for you.
Any conformant Kubernetes cluster: EKS, GKE, AKS, on-prem or bare-metal, public or private. 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. Unlike Okteto, there is no self-hosted option on the lower tiers, but the Enterprise tier can run the control plane inside your own VPC.
Okteto has a free starter tier and sales-led paid plans. Atmosly starts at $399 a month for the Starter plan, with a 30-day trial and no credit card required.