Inspektor Gadget review
A broad open-source toolkit for Kubernetes inspection, network tracing, profiling, and packet capture.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Inspektor Gadget is an open-source toolkit and framework for collecting data from Kubernetes clusters and Linux hosts with eBPF. It is aimed at teams that need low-level system inspection with Kubernetes and container context, including platform engineers, cluster operators, and developers investigating network, DNS, runtime, or CPU behavior. Kubernetes deployment uses a DaemonSet, while the ig binary supports Linux host tracing. Automatic metadata enrichment connects low-level events to Kubernetes and container objects.
Its ecosystem fit is a central strength. Inspektor Gadget integrates with Kubernetes, Docker, containerd, CRI-O, Podman, and OpenTelemetry, and supports command-line, client-server, API, and Go-library usage modes. Gadgets can be packaged as OCI images for reuse, while pod and container filtering helps narrow inspection to relevant workloads. The feature set covers TCP connection tracing, DNS query and response tracing, container packet capture with pcap-compatible filters, and export of profiles over OTLP. This makes it suitable for environments that already use Kubernetes and want inspection tools close to the container runtime.
The project favors breadth over a single guided workflow. Alongside tracing and filtering, it includes networking, profiling, packet capture, export, and extensibility capabilities, so teams can address several observability tasks without adopting separate utilities. That scope also means it is better suited to technically capable teams comfortable with self-hosted execution and multiple interfaces than to buyers seeking a hosted, narrowly focused monitoring product. Linux hosts are the primary execution environment; macOS and Windows are supported as clients through gadgetctl.
Inspektor Gadget pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Broad eBPF inspection across Kubernetes, containers, and Linux hosts
- Network, DNS, packet capture, and CPU profiling in one toolkit
- OpenTelemetry profile export and OCI-based Gadget packaging
- Where it doesn't
- Self-hosted execution requires your team to operate the deployment
- Linux is required for host tracing and eBPF collection
- The broad CLI, API, client-server, and Go modes add technical scope
Inspektor Gadget fact sheet, pricing and score →
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