Crossplane
Crossplane is an open-source, CNCF-graduated cloud-native control plane framework that extends Kubernetes to orchestrate infrastructure and applications via declarative APIs, serving platform engineering teams at hundreds of enterprises with commercial offerings delivered through partners.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2018
- HeadquartersSan Diego, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What Crossplane does
Crossplane is an open-source, cloud-native control plane framework that extends Kubernetes to orchestrate infrastructure, applications, and services through declarative APIs. Originally created by Upbound and now governed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) under the Linux Foundation, the project reached CNCF graduation status in November 2025 after amassing over 100 releases and a community of 13,400+ Slack members. The technology enables platform engineering teams to build custom control planes and APIs that abstract infrastructure provisioning, encapsulate governance policies and RBAC, and enable self-service consumption by humans, automated workflows, and AI agents.
The core product is the Apache 2.0-licensed Crossplane framework, extended through Providers (which orchestrate new applications and infrastructure) and Configurations (which expose new APIs). Commercial offerings are delivered through a partner ecosystem rather than directly by the project: Upbound provides a paid platform with security, support, and official providers; Procedure, InfraCloud, KodeKloud, VSHN, and Cloudflavor deliver consulting, implementation, managed services, and training; Alauda embeds Crossplane in its application delivery platform. The framework competes in the Infrastructure as Code market against Terraform (HashiCorp) and Pulumi, with Apache 2.0 licensing positioning it as a defensible alternative amid HashiCorp's BSL transition.
Crossplane's user base spans hundreds of enterprises including AWS, BMW Group, American Express, ByteDance, Alibaba, Accenture, Comcast, Electronic Arts, Cruise, and Autodesk. Primary customer segments are platform engineering teams building internal developer platforms, DevOps and SRE teams managing multi-cloud infrastructure, and cloud-native organizations seeking to extend Kubernetes beyond containers. Revenue does not accrue to the Crossplane project itself; commercial economics flow to Upbound and partner service providers, which constrains direct revenue analysis of the project entity.
Crossplane firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- Crossplane
- Legal name
- Crossplane (Cloud Native Computing Foundation Project)
- Website
- https://crossplane.io
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2018
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- Crossplane is an open-source, CNCF-graduated cloud-native control plane framework that extends Kubernetes to orchestrate infrastructure and applications via declarative APIs, serving platform engineering teams at hundreds of enterprises with commercial offerings delivered through partners.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Crossplane industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Cloud Infrastructure Orchestration / Platform Engineering
- NAICS
- Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Cloud Automation & IaC (Terraform, CI/CD, Policy-as-Code) (BPAEACAL)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- Cloud-Native Development (Containers, Kubernetes, Microservices) (BPAEACAD), Hybrid Cloud Platforms & Orchestration (HDABAMAA), Cloud Architecture & Migration Integration (BPAEAAAH)
Keywords
Where Crossplane is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Diego
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Markets served
Crossplane business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- Open Source Core (Apache 2.0): Crossplane core is open source under Apache 2.0 license. Revenue is not directly generated from the open source core but enables commercial ecosystem.
- Commercial Consulting Services: Partners like Upbound, Procedure, InfraCloud, and Cloudflavor provide paid consulting, implementation, and support services for enterprise Crossplane deployments.
- Managed Services: Partners like VSHN and Cloudflavor offer managed Crossplane services for organizations that prefer not to operate the platform internally.
- Training and Enablement: Partners like KodeKloud offer paid training programs including hands-on labs and real practice environments for Crossplane skill development.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Others | Open Source - Free tier |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels3 records
Marketing channels5 records
Crossplane product offering
Product offeringCore offering
Crossplane is an open-source cloud-native control plane framework built on Kubernetes that enables organizations to build their own APIs and platforms for orchestrating any infrastructure or application resource. It uses declarative, Kubernetes-style APIs to allow engineers, automated workflows, and AI agents to self-service infrastructure provisioning with policy guardrails, self-healing reconciliation, and GitOps-based change management. The framework is extensible via Providers (for new infrastructure types) and Configurations (for custom APIs), and is offered under Apache 2.0 with commercial support available through partner ecosystem.
Product overview
Crossplane is an open source cloud-native control plane framework (v2) that enables organizations to build platforms like cloud vendors build theirs. The core offering consists of the open source Crossplane project which extends Kubernetes to manage any resource anywhere. The ecosystem includes commercial offerings from Upbound (the creator) and other partners. Crossplane's architecture is designed for extensibility through Providers (which extend orchestration to new applications/infrastructure) and Configurations (which expose new APIs). Organizations can build custom control planes with declarative APIs tailored to their needs, enabling self-service for engineers, automated workflows, and AI agents.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Crossplane (Open Source)
Quantifiable outcome
- Self-healing infrastructure that automatically corrects drift
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use Crossplane
Customer profileNamed customers13 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Crossplane technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability1 record
Feature6 records
Crossplane partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Seven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- UpboundcoreUpbound is the creator of open source Crossplane. They built Crossplane to help organizations build platforms like cloud vendors build theirs—with control planes. Upbound provides a commercial platform with security, support, and official providers to scale Crossplane.
- ProcedureminorProcedure provides Crossplane consulting, implementation, and support services to help organizations adopt cloud-native infrastructure automation. Expertise in Kubernetes and multi-cloud environments.
- InfraCloudminorInfraCloud offers consulting, implementation, and managed services for Crossplane. Their team helps simplify infrastructure management so organizations can focus on innovation.
- AlaudaminorAlauda uses Crossplane to provide application delivery and infrastructure provisioning in production environments. Empowers organizations to streamline application delivery and ensure consistent configurations.
- KodeKloudminorKodeKloud offers hands-on Crossplane training through guided labs and real practice environments. Builds practical control-plane and platform skills alongside Kubernetes and cloud-native workflows.
- VSHNminorVSHN is a seasoned adopter of Crossplane in live environments, bringing daily usage expertise to Crossplane projects. Offers Crossplane support services.
- CloudflavorminorCloudflavor provides comprehensive Crossplane consulting and managed services. Deep expertise in Kubernetes and cloud platforms enables seamless infrastructure automation and management.
Scale indicators5 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
Crossplane competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- HashiCorp Terraform: Terraform is the dominant infrastructure-as-code tool and Crossplane's primary direct competitor in declarative infrastructure provisioning. Both target platform and DevOps engineers managing multi-cloud resources, though Terraform uses HCL while Crossplane leverages Kubernetes-native patterns.
- Pulumi: Pulumi offers infrastructure as code using general-purpose programming languages and competes directly with Crossplane in the declarative infrastructure space. Both target platform engineering teams seeking programmable infrastructure, with Pulumi emphasizing language familiarity and Crossplane emphasizing Kubernetes-native control planes.
- Argo CD: Argo CD is a CNCF Graduated GitOps continuous delivery tool for Kubernetes that overlaps with Crossplane's GitOps integration value proposition. Both target platform engineering teams deploying cloud-native infrastructure and applications, though Argo CD focuses on application sync while Crossplane focuses on resource orchestration.
- Cluster API (Kubernetes SIG): Cluster API is a Kubernetes sub-project for managing Kubernetes cluster lifecycle using declarative APIs and reconciling controllers—the same architectural pattern Crossplane extends to general infrastructure. Both target platform engineers and share Kubernetes-native control plane philosophy.
- Helm: Helm is the de facto Kubernetes package manager that overlaps with Crossplane's use case of packaging and deploying cloud-native resources. While Helm focuses on templated Kubernetes manifests, Crossplane's Composition feature competes for the same self-service platform use cases.
Others
- Upbound: Upbound is the original creator of Crossplane and provides the commercial Crossplane platform with enterprise support, security, and official providers. It is a strategic enabler and commercial sponsor rather than a direct competitor, but its success directly affects Crossplane adoption and ecosystem health.
Broad incumbents
- AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK): AWS CDK is a broad-incumbent infrastructure-as-code framework from AWS that competes with Crossplane for cloud infrastructure provisioning workloads. While CDK is AWS-centric, its scale, vendor backing, and free pricing make it a significant alternative for enterprises already invested in AWS.
- Ansible (Red Hat): Ansible is a broad-incumbent IT automation platform from Red Hat that competes with Crossplane for configuration management and infrastructure provisioning workloads. It targets a broader operations audience with imperative playbooks rather than declarative APIs.
Emerging players
- Spacelift: Spacelift is an infrastructure orchestration platform for Terraform, Pulumi, and other IaC tools that competes with Crossplane in the policy-as-code and self-service infrastructure layer. It targets the same platform engineering buyer but layers on top of existing IaC rather than replacing it.
- env0: env0 is an infrastructure-as-code automation and collaboration platform that provides self-service environments on top of Terraform. It competes with Crossplane in the platform engineering team workflow layer, though it focuses on Terraform orchestration rather than Kubernetes-native control planes.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks5 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
Crossplane social profiles
Digital presenceCrossplane financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Crossplane leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Crossplane funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Crossplane M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Crossplane
What does Crossplane do?
Crossplane is an open-source cloud-native control plane framework built on Kubernetes that enables organizations to build their own APIs and platforms for orchestrating any infrastructure or application resource. It uses declarative, Kubernetes-style APIs to allow engineers, automated workflows, and AI agents to self-service infrastructure provisioning with policy guardrails, self-healing reconciliation, and GitOps-based change management. The framework is extensible via Providers (for new infrastructure types) and Configurations (for custom APIs), and is offered under Apache 2.0 with commercial support available through partner ecosystem.
Is Crossplane a public or private company?
Crossplane is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was Crossplane founded?
Crossplane was founded in 2018. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is Crossplane based?
Crossplane is headquartered in San Diego, United States, in the North America region.
How does Crossplane make money?
Four revenue lines are on record. Open Source Core (Apache 2.0) is the primary driver. The others are commercial Consulting Services, managed Services and training and Enablement.
Who are Crossplane's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are HashiCorp Terraform, Pulumi, Argo CD, Cluster API (Kubernetes SIG) and Helm. Upbound is listed as an others. Broad incumbents are AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK) and Ansible (Red Hat). Emerging players are Spacelift and env0.
Does Crossplane have an API?
Yes. Crossplane provides a declarative API-driven approach to infrastructure management. The control plane framework enables building custom APIs that expose declarative configuration for infrastructure resources. Crossplane enables humans, automation, and AI systems to interact with infrastructure through self-describing APIs that make intent explicit, auditable, and machine-readable.
What industry is Crossplane in?
Crossplane's product category is Cloud Infrastructure Orchestration / Platform Engineering. Its primary akta.pro industry code is BPAEACAL, Cloud Automation & IaC (Terraform, CI/CD, Policy-as-Code), with a secondary code of BPAEACAD, Cloud-Native Development (Containers, Kubernetes, Microservices). Its NAICS code is 5415 and its SIC code is 7373.