From development to production - the complete platform
Okteto speeds up development. Skyhook speeds up everything after - deployments, rollouts, scaling, and production management. Get the full developer lifecycle on Kubernetes.
How Skyhook compares
| Dimension | Skyhook | Okteto |
|---|---|---|
| Core focus | Full-lifecycle developer platform covering deployment, preview environments, rollout strategies, service catalog, auto-scaling, and production readiness. | Development environment platform focused on giving developers production-like environments for coding and testing. Strongest in the inner development loop. |
| Development environments | Preview environments for every PR that mirror production. Focused on the deployment and review workflow rather than the coding experience. | Cloud-based development environments that sync local code changes to remote Kubernetes clusters in real time. Hot-reload in the cloud. |
| Production deployment | Canary deployments, blue-green rollouts, progressive delivery with auto-rollback, GitOps with ArgoCD, and production readiness checks. | Primarily focused on development and preview environments. Production deployment strategies are not a core focus. |
| Service catalog | Built-in service catalog with health status, deployment state, production readiness scores, and environment management. | Service discovery through the development environment. No dedicated service catalog for production management. |
| Deployment model | SaaS control plane with Kubernetes clusters running in your cloud account (AWS, GCP, Azure, OCI). Also supports on-prem and any CNCF-conformant cluster. | Self-hosted or SaaS options. Installs into your Kubernetes cluster as a namespace-level operator. |
| Target workflow | Code review to production deployment. Git-connected deploys, preview environments for PRs, canary rollouts, production readiness validation. | Local development to code review. Real-time code sync, instant feedback loops, development environment management. |
| Auto-scaling | Kubernetes-native horizontal and vertical auto-scaling based on CPU, memory, or custom metrics for production workloads. | Development environments scale based on developer activity. Not focused on production workload scaling. |
| Pricing | Generous free tier (3 users, 3 services, 1 cluster) with no credit card required. Pair with cloud provider free credits for a zero-cost start. Paid tiers scale with your team. | Free tier for individual developers. Team and Enterprise plans available with per-developer pricing. |
Feature-by-feature comparison
Skyhook and Okteto can work together
Use Okteto for the inner development loop - coding, debugging, and testing in cloud-based environments. Use Skyhook for the outer loop - deploying, rolling out, scaling, and managing production. They solve different problems and complement each other well.
Why teams choose Skyhook over Okteto
Full lifecycle, not just development
Okteto excels at development environments. Skyhook covers the rest - preview environments for code review, canary deployments for safe production releases, auto-scaling for traffic management, and production readiness checks for operational confidence.
Production-grade deployment strategies
When your code is ready to ship, Skyhook gives you canary deployments with traffic splitting, blue-green with instant cutover, and progressive delivery that auto-rolls back on errors. Okteto is focused on getting code into environments, not managing production releases.
Service catalog and visibility
Skyhook's service catalog shows you the health, deployment state, and production readiness of every service across all environments. It's your single pane of glass for what's running, what's healthy, and what needs attention.
Complementary tools
Okteto and Skyhook can work together. Use Okteto for the inner development loop (coding and testing) and Skyhook for the outer loop (deployment, rollouts, production management). They solve different parts of the developer experience.
Frequently asked questions
We use Okteto for development. Do we need to replace it?
No. Okteto and Skyhook solve different problems. Okteto handles the development experience (coding, debugging, testing). Skyhook handles everything after - deployments, rollouts, scaling, and production management. You can run both.
Does Skyhook offer cloud development environments like Okteto?
Skyhook focuses on preview environments for code review and production deployment workflows, not real-time code sync for development. If you need cloud-based development environments, Okteto or similar tools complement Skyhook well.
Can Skyhook replace Okteto entirely?
If your primary need is preview environments for PRs and production deployments, yes. If your team relies on Okteto's real-time code sync and cloud development environments for daily coding, you'd lose that capability.
How do the preview environments differ?
Okteto's environments are designed for active development - code changes sync in real time. Skyhook's preview environments are built from Git commits and designed for code review and QA - they represent a specific state of the code, not a live development session.
Last updated: April 2026
Why Choose Skyhook?
Best Practices Out-of-the-Box
Start strong with monitoring, rollout strategies, ephemeral environments and secret management.
No Lock-in
Stay in control without being dependent on specific cloud providers or third-party tools. Unlike PaaS, you can easily migrate away.
Start and scale quickly
Get started in minutes, not days, with our fully configured environment. Grows with your needs, regardless of engineering group size.
Kubernetes based
Simplify Kubernetes for developers and make management easy for DevOps.
The Best tools
Skyhook has built-in support for the top tools in the Kubernetes ecosystem, such as ArgoCD, Kyverno, Grafana and many more.
Flexible
With Kubernetes under the hood, all the ecosystem and advanced functionality is readily available when you need it.
Ready to roll?
It's quick and easy to get started.
No credit card required.