No. 14 of 21 ·GPU Cluster Management Software

KAI Scheduler

Self-hosted

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Freedom report

One barScore 5.3

Free tierNo free tier on record
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely0 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

KAI Scheduler is ranked #14 of 21 in GPU cluster management software on Freedom251. It runs on Self-hosted.

Compared on GPU cluster management software

Deployment model: self_hosted
Workload scheduling: both
Kubernetes support: Yes
Quota controls: Yes
GPU utilization metrics: Yes
Cloud GPU support: Yes

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The record

Purpose: KAI Scheduler is a Kubernetes-native scheduler that optimizes GPU allocation for AI workloads across data processing, training, and inference.
Scale: The project says it is designed and continuously tested for large GPU clusters with thousands of nodes and high-throughput workloads.
Queues: Hierarchical queues support quotas, limits, priorities, and borrowing resources across teams.
Gang scheduling: Gang scheduling places all pods in a distributed workload together or waits until resources are available.
Elastic workloads: Elastic workloads can grow or shrink within configured minimum and maximum replica counts as capacity changes.
GPU sharing: GPU sharing supports time slicing, MPS, and MIG so multiple workloads can share GPU devices.
Integrations: The project documents native integration for Ray workloads on Kubernetes and integration with Grove for complex workloads.
Deployment: KAI Scheduler can be installed from a production Helm chart, built from source, or installed with ArgoCD; it requires a running Kubernetes cluster and Helm.
Supported infrastructure: The project states it supports cloud and on-premise deployments, including cloud auto-scalers such as Karpenter.
Security: Security vulnerabilities should be reported through GitHub Security Advisories rather than public GitHub issues.
Support: LTS releases receive public support for one year, including security patches and critical bug fixes.
Support channel: The project directs users to open GitHub issues for bugs, feature suggestions, or technical help.
License and project: KAI Scheduler is an open-source Apache-2.0 project and a CNCF sandbox project.
Prerequisite: The installation guide says NVIDIA GPU-Operator is required to schedule workloads requesting GPU resources.

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best GPU Cluster Management Software in 2026#14 of 21

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Sources

kai-scheduler.dev· checked 5 Oct 2026
github.com/kai-scheduler/KAI-Scheduler· checked 5 Oct 2026
github.com/kai-scheduler/KAI-Scheduler/blob/main/S· checked 5 Oct 2026
github.com/kai-scheduler/KAI-Scheduler/blob/main/S· checked 5 Oct 2026