Crossplane

Crossplane is an open-source Kubernetes add-on that extends cluster APIs to manage and provision external infrastructure resources. It essentially turns a Kubernetes cluster into a universal control plane that can spin up cloud servers, databases, and storage. This allows developers to manage cloud infrastructure using standard Kubernetes manifests and commands.

Yes, Crossplane is an open-source project that originally emerged from Upbound. It is heavily involved in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) ecosystem. Because it is open-source, organizations can use it freely and contribute to its growing library of supported infrastructure providers.

While both tools provision cloud resources, Crossplane manages them continuously as native Kubernetes objects, whereas Terraform is an external command-line tool. With Crossplane, if someone manually deletes a database outside the system, the controller will detect the drift and automatically recreate it. This GitOps-friendly approach makes it a compelling Kubernetes-native alternative.

Crossplane features a massive ecosystem of providers that allow it to interface with major cloud platforms like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP). Additionally, it supports specialized providers for services like GitHub, MongoDB, and private on-premise environments. This allows it to act as a single control plane across hybrid environments.