--- title: Installing Addons content_type: concept weight: 120 --- {{% thirdparty-content %}} Add-ons extend the functionality of Kubernetes. This page lists some of the available add-ons and links to their respective installation instructions. The list does not try to be exhaustive. ## Networking and Network Policy * [ACI](https://www.github.com/noironetworks/aci-containers) provides integrated container networking and network security with Cisco ACI. * [Antrea](https://antrea.io/) operates at Layer 3/4 to provide networking and security services for Kubernetes, leveraging Open vSwitch as the networking data plane. Antrea is a [CNCF project at the Sandbox level](https://www.cncf.io/projects/antrea/). * [Calico](https://www.tigera.io/project-calico/) is a networking and network policy provider. Calico supports a flexible set of networking options so you can choose the most efficient option for your situation, including non-overlay and overlay networks, with or without BGP. Calico uses the same engine to enforce network policy for hosts, pods, and (if using Istio & Envoy) applications at the service mesh layer. * [Canal](https://projectcalico.docs.tigera.io/getting-started/kubernetes/flannel/flannel) unites Flannel and Calico, providing networking and network policy. * [Cilium](https://github.com/cilium/cilium) is a networking, observability, and security solution with an eBPF-based data plane. Cilium provides a simple flat Layer 3 network with the ability to span multiple clusters in either a native routing or overlay/encapsulation mode, and can enforce network policies on L3-L7 using an identity-based security model that is decoupled from network addressing. Cilium can act as a replacement for kube-proxy; it also offers additional, opt-in observability and security features. Cilium is a [CNCF project at the Incubation level](https://www.cncf.io/projects/cilium/). * [CNI-Genie](https://github.com/cni-genie/CNI-Genie) enables Kubernetes to seamlessly connect to a choice of CNI plugins, such as Calico, Canal, Flannel, or Weave. CNI-Genie is a [CNCF project at the Sandbox level](https://www.cncf.io/projects/cni-genie/). * [Contiv](https://contivpp.io/) provides configurable networking (native L3 using BGP, overlay using vxlan, classic L2, and Cisco-SDN/ACI) for various use cases and a rich policy framework. Contiv project is fully [open sourced](https://github.com/contiv). The [installer](https://github.com/contiv/install) provides both kubeadm and non-kubeadm based installation options. * [Contrail](https://www.juniper.net/us/en/products-services/sdn/contrail/contrail-networking/), based on [Tungsten Fabric](https://tungsten.io), is an open source, multi-cloud network virtualization and policy management platform. Contrail and Tungsten Fabric are integrated with orchestration systems such as Kubernetes, OpenShift, OpenStack and Mesos, and provide isolation modes for virtual machines, containers/pods and bare metal workloads. * [Flannel](https://github.com/flannel-io/flannel#deploying-flannel-manually) is an overlay network provider that can be used with Kubernetes. * [Knitter](https://github.com/ZTE/Knitter/) is a plugin to support multiple network interfaces in a Kubernetes pod. * [Multus](https://github.com/k8snetworkplumbingwg/multus-cni) is a Multi plugin for multiple network support in Kubernetes to support all CNI plugins (e.g. Calico, Cilium, Contiv, Flannel), in addition to SRIOV, DPDK, OVS-DPDK and VPP based workloads in Kubernetes. * [OVN-Kubernetes](https://github.com/ovn-org/ovn-kubernetes/) is a networking provider for Kubernetes based on [OVN (Open Virtual Network)](https://github.com/ovn-org/ovn/), a virtual networking implementation that came out of the Open vSwitch (OVS) project. OVN-Kubernetes provides an overlay based networking implementation for Kubernetes, including an OVS based implementation of load balancing and network policy. * [Nodus](https://github.com/akraino-edge-stack/icn-nodus) is an OVN based CNI controller plugin to provide cloud native based Service function chaining(SFC). * [NSX-T](https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-NSX-T-Data-Center/index.html) Container Plug-in (NCP) provides integration between VMware NSX-T and container orchestrators such as Kubernetes, as well as integration between NSX-T and container-based CaaS/PaaS platforms such as Pivotal Container Service (PKS) and OpenShift. * [Nuage](https://github.com/nuagenetworks/nuage-kubernetes/blob/v5.1.1-1/docs/kubernetes-1-installation.rst) is an SDN platform that provides policy-based networking between Kubernetes Pods and non-Kubernetes environments with visibility and security monitoring. * [Romana](https://github.com/romana) is a Layer 3 networking solution for pod networks that also supports the [NetworkPolicy](/docs/concepts/services-networking/network-policies/) API. * [Weave Net](https://www.weave.works/docs/net/latest/kubernetes/kube-addon/) provides networking and network policy, will carry on working on both sides of a network partition, and does not require an external database. ## Service Discovery * [CoreDNS](https://coredns.io) is a flexible, extensible DNS server which can be [installed](https://github.com/coredns/deployment/tree/master/kubernetes) as the in-cluster DNS for pods. ## Visualization & Control * [Dashboard](https://github.com/kubernetes/dashboard#kubernetes-dashboard) is a dashboard web interface for Kubernetes. * [Weave Scope](https://www.weave.works/documentation/scope-latest-installing/#k8s) is a tool for graphically visualizing your containers, pods, services etc. Use it in conjunction with a [Weave Cloud account](https://cloud.weave.works/) or host the UI yourself. ## Infrastructure * [KubeVirt](https://kubevirt.io/user-guide/#/installation/installation) is an add-on to run virtual machines on Kubernetes. Usually run on bare-metal clusters. * The [node problem detector](https://github.com/kubernetes/node-problem-detector) runs on Linux nodes and reports system issues as either [Events](/docs/reference/kubernetes-api/cluster-resources/event-v1/) or [Node conditions](/docs/concepts/architecture/nodes/#condition). ## Legacy Add-ons There are several other add-ons documented in the deprecated [cluster/addons](https://git.k8s.io/kubernetes/cluster/addons) directory. Well-maintained ones should be linked to here. PRs welcome!