Executive summary: Kubecost runs 22 unique and broad-ranging tests daily to ensure the cost-accuracy and functionality of the product to meet customer expectations.
The company: Kubecost is the leading open-source tool for giving developers visibility into Kubernetes spend. Founded in 2019 by ex-Googlers, Kubecost maintains a deep commitment to building and supporting solutions that empower teams of all sizes to monitor and reduce costs. With over $4 billion in assets being managed through their tools, Kubecost is quickly becoming the cost management partner of choice for Kubernetes teams.
The product: Kubecost offers two versions of their cost monitoring solution- self-hosted and SaaS. These solutions give their users powerful visibility and control into costs across clusters, namespaces, deployments, services and more.
Kubecost Cloud empowers teams to take control of their Kubernetes cloud costs with a multi-tenant SaaS solution that supports unlimited clusters across AWS, Azure, GCP, and on-prem.
Self-Hosted Kubecost allows teams to see allocated spend across all native Kubernetes concepts with a solution that can be installed in 5 minutes or less for fast, easy spend management.
One of the central features of Kubecost is the API that connects their platform to customers’ Kubernetes clusters, which ensures that Kubecost shows accurate cost estimates. If that API doesn’t work, Kubecost doesn’t work.
The team: Jesse Goodier leads the QA practice and whatever else is needed (they are a quickly growing startup) to support Kubecost’s thriving community of 1000+ engineering teams. Leveraging years of experience advocating for customers, Jesse led the effort to build the software testing strategy and infrastructure needed to deliver accurate costs and excellent user experiences to Kubecost’s passionate customer community.
Prior to mabl, testing was primarily ad-hoc and focused on the most acute customer needs. While this user focus reflected Kubecost’s mission to empower development teams, it became unsustainable due to how critical it is for Kubecost to always report accurate costs for their customers.
The testing challenge: Kubecost is an early stage startup tackling a major challenge for engineering teams, which means quality is a shared responsibility and absolutely essential. Since their product is API-first, a viable software testing strategy had to include API and UI testing to drive value.
Improving confidence with mabl: Since meeting mabl at Google Cloud Next 2023 (both mabl and Kubecost are Google partners), Jesse and Kubecost team have built a suite of reliable tests that catch issues in development and monitor production environments. These tests include UI tests that support the user experience and API tests that monitor fundamental product functionality.
Mabl’s low-code user interface allows everyone from pre-sales to developers to the founder to contribute to Kubecost’s quality strategy, making it easier to find and fix issues before they become problems. Having a unified platform for API testing and UI testing means that Jesse’s team is seeing more value from automated testing. Jesse shared:
“We’re getting value out of mabl every single day with production testing, UI testing, and API testing. It’s so easy to identify issues, send our developers a screenshot, and quickly find a solution. Having that transparency and reliability really boosts our confidence and ensures Kubecost is giving the most accurate information possible.”
