Kustomize
Kubernetes configuration tool in Developer tools
People recommend Kustomize as a simple, built-in way to customize plain Kubernetes YAML manifests for different environments without templating. Critics find it limiting and hard once deployments get complex.
People recommend Kustomize as a simple, built-in way to customize plain Kubernetes YAML manifests for different environments without templating. Critics find it limiting and hard once deployments get complex.
30 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 16
- criticize it
- 14
- approval share
- 53%
Recommended in 4 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 16 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 4 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
Simple yet powerful for needs
“Just enough features easily available to handle everything i've ever needed in the simple deployments I use.”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Helm 4.0” “I've embraced kustomize and I like it. It's simple enough and powerful enough for my needs.”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Helm 4.0” Customizes plain YAML manifests per environment
“you just write the default as perfectly normal K8s manifests in YAML”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Helm 4.0” “use Kustomize to change said manifests for prod, staging, etc.”
Comment from 15 Nov 2025 in “Helm 4.0” “move on to do everything else can via Kustomize via gitop”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Helm 4.0” Built into kubectl, works well
“Kustomize is even somewhat included into basic kubernetes tooling, so if you want something "opinionated", it is there for you. It works.”
Comment from 26 Apr 2026 in “Dear friend, you have built a Kubernetes (2024)” “now with kustomize built in you can easily do everything you want with templating”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Nobody needs Kubernetes for eleven users” Preferred over Helm
“I also prefer Kustomize over Helm. That said, their removal of vars was a boneheaded decision without a working replacement.”
Comment from 17 Oct 2026 in “A skeptic's first contact with Kubernetes (2024)” “I definitely prefer using kustomize over helm”
Comment from 17 Oct 2026 in “A skeptic's first contact with Kubernetes (2024)”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Limited features and templating gaps
“Kustomize didn’t support replacement or tempting for any arbitrary value”
Comment from 18 Oct 2026 in “A skeptic's first contact with Kubernetes (2024)” “it's frustratingly limiting and also still very complicated”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “What job interviews taught me about Kubernetes” Gets complicated at scale
“Kustomize also seems like hell when a deployment reaches a certain level of complexity.”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Helm 4.0” “it's frustratingly limiting and also still very complicated”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “What job interviews taught me about Kubernetes” Hard to order execution
“it was awful trying to figure out the order of execution”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Helm 4.0” “might be processed again after the fact with Kustomize”
Comment from 17 Oct 2026 in “A skeptic's first contact with Kubernetes (2024)”
What people recommend instead
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.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Helm | 68 | 82 | 45% | 12 | — | — |
| KustomizeThis page | 16 | 14 | 53% | 4 | — | — |
What people said
35 of the 36 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Kustomize didn’t support replacement or tempting for any arbitrary value”
“Kustomize was simply way harder to use than Helm”
“I also prefer Kustomize over Helm. That said, their removal of vars was a boneheaded decision without a working replacement.”
“Kustomize is about as good as it gets using simple patches.”
“It was great, except almost no-one used the inheritance feature except me”
“might be processed again after the fact with Kustomize”
“I definitely prefer using kustomize over helm”
“now with kustomize built in you can easily do everything you want with templating”
“it's frustratingly limiting and also still very complicated”
“Good luck doing that with kustomize.”
“Kustomize is just plain terrible and backwards as a solution”
“Kustomize is even somewhat included into basic kubernetes tooling, so if you want something "opinionated", it is there for you. It works.”
“Some Kustomize, a little bit of envsubst and we're good to go thank you very much.”
“everything ends up on a single line”
“you're messing up by including kustomize or helm at all in 80% of cases”
“Frankly, you're messing up by including kustomize or helm at all in 80% of cases.”
“Kustomize actually doesn't do what you want, so you need to convert the entire thing to Helm.”
“use Kustomize to change said manifests for prod, staging, etc.”
“move on to do everything else can via Kustomize via gitop”
“it was awful trying to figure out the order of execution”
“Not only does kustomize template and merge together yaml but so does the valuesFrom thing, however at "runtime" in the cluster.”
“Stick with Kustomize or jsonnet.”
“Kustomize is better example.”
“Just enough features easily available to handle everything i've ever needed in the simple deployments I use.”
“I've embraced kustomize and I like it. It's simple enough and powerful enough for my needs.”
“Kustomize also seems like hell when a deployment reaches a certain level of complexity.”
“I still have nightmare when I had to use jsonnet and kustomize just for istio, with upgrade hell.”
“Kustomize with ArgoCD is my go to”
“you just write the default as perfectly normal K8s manifests in YAML”
“Does your Kubernetes configuration need to be installed by you and your organization alone? Use Kustomize.”
“Yeah, but then it is yet another layer of configuration slapped on top of the previous layer of configuration.”
“I could not ever figure out how to do things outside the "hello world" tutorials they walk you through.”
“is probably a more sane route to go down”
“Pairing helm with Kustomize can help a lot as well.”
“keep inventing things like Kustomize and similar that have better designs”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.