Kube-Hetzner is a Terraform module that provisions production-ready Kubernetes clusters on Hetzner Cloud infrastructure.
The tool addresses the complexity of deploying and maintaining Kubernetes by automating cluster provisioning with sensible defaults for high availability, security, and cost optimization. It uses Terraform to codify infrastructure as code, allowing users to define their desired cluster topology in a configuration file and deploy it in minutes. The module handles networking setup with private networks and firewalls, integrates certificate management and ingress controllers, manages OS and Kubernetes upgrades automatically, and supports both k3s for lightweight deployments and RKE2 for compliance-heavy environments. Nodes run on openSUSE Leap Micro, an immutable operating system designed for container workloads.
Kube-Hetzner suits teams already using Hetzner Cloud who want to avoid managing Kubernetes infrastructure manually. It works well for small development clusters through large production deployments with hundreds of nodes. The module provides multiple topology templates for different use cases: simple single-control-plane setups, highly available three-control-plane configurations, private-only clusters with NAT routing, and advanced multinetwork designs with Tailscale. Users can choose between Flannel, Calico, or Cilium for networking, and the tool validates configurations at plan time to catch invalid topologies before infrastructure is created. The module includes release evidence documentation tying version claims to live testing results for apply, upgrade, health, and destroy operations.
Development activity shows consistent maintenance with documented upgrade paths between major versions and a detailed migration guide for users moving from version 2 to version 3. The project maintains a comprehensive changelog and provides topology recommendations and support matrices to guide users toward appropriate configurations for their needs. Release notes include specific version information and evidence-backed claims about cluster functionality.
