Two different jobs on the same cluster
Cast AI is a Kubernetes automation platform with one central promise: your cluster costs less without you hand-tuning it. It sets CPU and memory requests from observed usage, packs pods onto fewer and better-fitting nodes, moves eligible work to Spot, and grows volumes before they fill. It starts read-only and changes nothing until you allow it. Cast AI says more than 2,100 companies use it, and a strategic investment in January 2026 valued it at over $1 billion.
Ankra is the platform the cluster runs on. It builds the cluster, delivers your applications and platform add-ons, ranks vulnerabilities, backs up data and operates all of it with an AI that, by default, asks before it acts.
Cast AI makes an existing cluster cheaper to run. Ankra builds the cluster and runs the platform on it. For many teams they are complements rather than alternatives.
Where each one works
Cast AI manages node provisioning on AWS EKS, Google GKE, Azure AKS and Oracle. On Rancher RKE2, VMware Tanzu, on-premises and other distributions, its Cast AI Anywhere mode right-sizes workloads and consolidates them, and leaves node scaling to your existing autoscaler. It does not create clusters, upgrade Kubernetes or manage the control plane. Its API runs in US, EU and India regions.
Ankra builds kubeadm or k3s on Hetzner, OVHcloud, UpCloud, DigitalOcean, AWS EC2 and Proxmox VE, creates EKS, GKE, AKS, DOKS, OVHcloud MKS and UpCloud UKS, and imports any conformant cluster. On clusters it builds, Ankra handles upgrades and node groups and power schedules, and on the five public clouds also node autoscaling with the upstream Cluster Autoscaler and rolling OS security patching.
Cost: applied automatically, or proposed for review
Cost is Cast AI’s core, and it goes deep. Beyond right-sizing and bin-packing, it uses your existing Savings Plans, reservations and committed-use discounts, offers Container Live Migration to move running stateful pods between nodes without a restart, grows volumes on GKE and EKS in early access, and caches database queries. CastPilot generates scaling policies from your workloads’ real behaviour, with a rationale you review and a disabled mode to try first. If continuous, automatic optimisation of a large cloud bill is the goal, Cast AI is ahead.
Ankra’s Cloud Cost estimates spend from list prices per cluster, namespace, stack, project and application, finds idle and orphaned resources, and reprices the whole cluster on every provider Ankra can build on. Its budgets and cost autopilot work through the CLI, API and AI; their portal screen is in closed beta. The autopilot defaults to hands-off, so every change waits for a person. The figures are estimates for trends and chargeback, not invoices.
If you run both on one cluster, decide which one owns node scaling and workload right-sizing. Both can change those, and two optimisers acting on the same nodes will work against each other. Test the combination on a non-production cluster first.
GPUs
Cast AI has a real GPU offer. GPU sharing splits GPUs across workloads with time-slicing, MIG and, on GKE, MPS and places them automatically, and OMNI Compute extends an existing EKS, GKE or AKS cluster onto GPU capacity in other regions and clouds, such as Oracle, when your own region runs out.
GPU sharing and cross-cloud GPU capacity are not Ankra features. Its cost comparison prices GPU node groups on UpCloud only, and its managed services, in closed beta, include an OpenAI-compatible vLLM endpoint on your own NVIDIA GPU nodes. If GPU capacity is the problem, Cast AI is the stronger choice.
Delivery, security and AI
Cast AI has no build or deploy engine and does not install platform add-ons. When a fix belongs in code, such as a Dockerfile or infrastructure as code, it opens a pull request and your own CI deploys it. Those agents, which also cover image vulnerabilities and Kubernetes compliance, are in private preview. Its earlier Security Insights vulnerability and compliance scanning is deprecated and closed to new customers. Its new MCP server is read-only and in private preview. Cast AI states SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certification.
Ankra builds that work in. Applications and Ankra Pipelines test, build and scan code with Semgrep, Checkov and Trivy in your cluster, and stacks install Helm add-ons in dependency order. The Security Center ranks running-workload vulnerabilities by CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalogue and FIRST’s EPSS scores, and backups write volumes and database dumps to a bucket you own. AI Insights analyses firing alerts, the AI Gateway reviews pull requests on GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket Cloud and fixes failing ones, and Ankra’s own AI asks before every write by default. Ankra’s security and compliance material is on its trust page.
When to choose Ankra, and when to choose Cast AI
Choose Ankra when you need the platform itself: clusters built on European or other providers or created as EKS, GKE or AKS, applications shipped from repository to release, add-ons, vulnerability ranking, backups and an AI operator whose changes wait for a person by default.
Choose Cast AI when
- cloud compute on EKS, GKE, AKS or Oracle is a large line item and you want it optimised continuously and automatically
- you want Spot, bin-packing and the use of your existing commitments handled for you within policies
- you are short of GPUs and want shared or cross-cloud GPU capacity
- you need a vendor that states SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certification today
Some teams will want both: Ankra for the platform, and Cast AI for the compute bill, with one clear owner for node scaling.
Compare the work that remains
- Create the foundation. Note which tool creates the cluster and who upgrades it.
- Ship a release. Include tests, scans and a rollback, and list every tool in the path.
- Change a workload’s resources. Note which tool sets the requests and whether the change reaches Git.
- Investigate a vulnerability. Find every affected workload and who opens the fix.
- Compare total cost. Cast AI quotes custom prices, and its homepage offers a 30-day free trial with no card. AWS Marketplace lists a free monitoring plan, Growth plans at $1,000 a month and Enterprise at $5,000 a month, plus about $0.0069 per managed CPU-hour. Ankra’s Free tier includes 30 worker vCPU; beyond that the Startup plan charges €0.01 per worker vCPU-hour, about €7.20 a month, and your provider bills the servers.
Reviewed 9 November 2026 against Cast AI’s documentation and pricing. Product scope and plans can change.