kubectl
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 35 of 86 privilege escalation tools by recommenders
Recommended for monitoring and debugging clusters, and seen as more ergonomic than systemctl and journalctl. Common caveat: kubectl explain and its man pages are hard to navigate.
Recommended for monitoring and debugging clusters, and seen as more ergonomic than systemctl and journalctl. Common caveat: kubectl explain and its man pages are hard to navigate.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Preferred daily tool over alternatives
“I prefer to work with kubectl but it's headache to use kubectl explain and look for a fields”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “Show HN: LFK – A Fast Kubernetes TUI” “I prefer to just use kubectl”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Red Hat takes on Docker Desktop with its enterprise Podman Desktop build” Better than systemctl and journalctl
“I often find kubectl and related tools like k9s more ergonomic than systemctl/journalctl”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “I Am Building a Cloud” “as much as I may dislike kubectl, it's worlds better than systemctl and journalctl”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “I Am Building a Cloud”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Hard-to-use help and man pages
“I prefer to work with kubectl but it's headache to use kubectl explain and look for a fields”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “Show HN: LFK – A Fast Kubernetes TUI” “the manpages for kubectl were kind of weird, mostly linking to their online docs”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Notes on Clarifying Man Pages”
Other privilege escalation tools people recommend
The four most recommended other privilege escalation tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 86 privilege escalation tools, rankedWhat people said
9 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“fantastic at using kubectl to monitor and debug clusters”
“I prefer to work with kubectl but it's headache to use kubectl explain and look for a fields”
“You can rely purely on kubectl with something like”
“as much as I may dislike kubectl, it's worlds better than systemctl and journalctl”
“I often find kubectl and related tools like k9s more ergonomic than systemctl/journalctl”
“I prefer to just use kubectl”
“the manpages for kubectl were kind of weird, mostly linking to their online docs”
“It's very good with github, aws, and kubectl cli.”
“Even kubectl slows down to a crawl with a thousand deployments on the same cluster.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.