KorPro vs PointFive: Deep Kubernetes Cleanup vs Broad Cloud Visibility

Most engineering teams managing Kubernetes at scale have two visibility gaps that don't overlap: they need a broad view of what their entire cloud estate is spending, and they need a deep view of what their Kubernetes clusters are wasting. These are different questions that require different tools.

PointFive approaches cost optimization from the cloud level down — covering all AWS, GCP, and Azure services and surfacing waste across compute, storage, databases, networking, and more, including some Kubernetes-level signals. KorPro approaches cost optimization from the Kubernetes cluster level up — focusing exclusively on the Kubernetes object graph and the orphaned resources that accumulate there over time.

This comparison explains the distinction, where each tool excels, and what gets missed when you have one but not the other.

What is PointFive?

PointFive is a cloud cost optimization platform that connects to your cloud billing data across AWS, GCP, and Azure and provides visibility into spend anomalies, unused resources, and savings opportunities across your entire cloud estate. It covers the full breadth of cloud services: EC2 instances, RDS databases, S3 buckets, EBS volumes, Load Balancers, and yes, some Kubernetes-level costs pulled from cloud billing data.

The strength of a tool like PointFive is its breadth. It gives finance and FinOps teams a single pane of glass for cloud costs across every service — helping them identify which teams, projects, or services are driving cost increases and where broad optimization opportunities exist. For organizations running many different services alongside Kubernetes, this cross-service visibility is genuinely valuable.

PointFive surfaces cloud-billed resources that appear unused or anomalous based on billing data. An unattached EBS volume appears as a cost without a running instance consuming it. An RDS instance with no recent connections appears as idle spend. These are real findings that a team relying only on Kubernetes-native tools would miss.

What is KorPro?

KorPro is a Kubernetes-specific orphaned resource cleanup platform. It installs a lightweight read-only Inspector into each cluster via Helm, which maps the complete Kubernetes object graph — every resource and every reference between resources — and identifies objects with no active workload consuming them.

The scope of KorPro is deliberately narrow and deliberately deep. It doesn't care about your RDS databases or your S3 buckets. It cares about what's happening inside the Kubernetes control plane: which PersistentVolumeClaims are no longer bound to any active Pod's volume mount, which Secrets are defined but referenced by nothing, which ConfigMaps exist in namespaces where all Deployments were deleted months ago, which RBAC roles are bound to ServiceAccounts that have no active workload.

KorPro also detects cascading orphan chains — a pattern where one orphaned resource references another orphaned resource, creating a dependency chain that none of its parent objects are using anymore. These chains are invisible to cloud billing APIs because the storage or IP allocation is still showing as "in use" at the infrastructure layer, even though no Kubernetes workload is referencing the chain anymore.

Why Kubernetes Needs Specialized Tooling

Cloud billing APIs describe infrastructure resources: disks, IP addresses, load balancers, compute instances. They don't describe Kubernetes object relationships. A PersistentVolume shows up in your cloud billing as an attached disk — because it is attached, to the cluster's storage layer. The fact that the PersistentVolumeClaim bound to it is no longer referenced by any Deployment is a Kubernetes-layer fact, not visible in billing data.

This is the fundamental reason broad cloud visibility tools have a ceiling when it comes to Kubernetes waste. The waste is not always visible as idle cloud resources. A PVC can be billing your cloud account at full rate while the last workload to use it was deleted two quarters ago — and nothing in your cloud billing data indicates anything is wrong, because the underlying disk is still provisioned.

Kubernetes-specific orphaned resources that require inside-the-cluster visibility include:

• PersistentVolumeClaims that are bound at the infrastructure layer but referenced by no active Pod
• Secrets containing credentials for services or teams that no longer exist
• ConfigMaps from Helm releases that were removed without --cascade cleanup
• RBAC RoleBindings to ServiceAccounts from decommissioned workloads
• Cascading orphan chains where an orphaned Deployment keeps a PVC alive, which keeps a PersistentVolume alive, which keeps a cloud disk billed
• Orphaned Services with no selector matching any live Pod, still holding a cloud load balancer allocation

A broad cloud cost tool sees the disk. Only a Kubernetes-native tool sees that the disk's ownership chain leads to a deleted Deployment.

Side-by-Side Comparison

When to Use Each

PointFive is the right choice when:

• You need visibility across your entire cloud estate, not just Kubernetes
• Finance teams need a single view of cloud spend across AWS, GCP, and Azure services
• You're identifying which services or teams are driving cost anomalies across your infrastructure
• You want cross-service waste identification (idle RDS instances, unattached EBS volumes, unused Elastic IPs)

KorPro is the right choice when:

• You're specifically trying to understand and reduce Kubernetes-layer waste
• You want to audit orphaned PVCs, Secrets, ConfigMaps, and RBAC before your next cloud bill
• You suspect accumulated waste from months of cluster activity — Helm releases, deleted namespaces, team offboarding — and need to find and safely remove it
• You need to detect cascading orphan chains that billing APIs cannot see
• You want a read-only, zero-modification audit before touching anything in production

Use both when:

• You run Kubernetes at scale and also have significant non-Kubernetes cloud spend
• FinOps teams need the cloud-wide picture (PointFive) while platform engineers need the Kubernetes-deep picture (KorPro)
• You want to close both visibility gaps: macro cost trends across all services, and granular orphan cleanup inside your clusters

The tools are complementary rather than competing. PointFive tells you which services and teams are spending the most and where anomalies appear in your cloud bill. KorPro tells you exactly which Kubernetes objects are generating that waste, why they're orphaned, and what they're costing you to keep.

Conclusion

Broad cloud cost visibility and deep Kubernetes orphan detection are both real needs — they're just not the same need.

If your primary question is "where is our cloud budget going across all services?", PointFive's cross-service view is the right starting point. If your question is "what Kubernetes objects are we paying for that have zero active purpose?", you need a tool that can read the Kubernetes object graph, not just cloud billing APIs.

For most teams running Kubernetes at scale, the answer is to address both layers: use broad visibility tooling for the cloud-wide view, and use KorPro for the Kubernetes-deep cleanup work that broad tools cannot perform.

For the complete feature breakdown: KorPro vs PointFive — Feature Comparison

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Find the Kubernetes Waste Your Cloud Billing Tool Misses

Cloud billing APIs can't see inside the Kubernetes object graph. KorPro can. Create your free KorPro account to run a read-only orphan audit across your GKE, EKS, or AKS clusters — no credentials leave your environment, and nothing changes until you decide to act. Want a guided walkthrough? Contact us.

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is PointFive? PointFive is a cloud cost optimization platform that provides visibility across AWS, GCP, and Azure services — covering compute, storage, databases, and more. It identifies cost anomalies, unused resources, and savings opportunities across your entire cloud estate, not just Kubernetes.

What does KorPro do that PointFive doesn't? KorPro specializes in Kubernetes-layer orphaned resource detection: unused PersistentVolumeClaims, stale Secrets, orphaned ConfigMaps, cascading orphan chains (an orphan that references another orphan). PointFive surfaces broad cloud waste but lacks the Kubernetes-specific depth — it won't detect that a PVC is orphaned because its parent Deployment was deleted without cleaning up storage.

Do I need both KorPro and PointFive? If you run Kubernetes at scale, yes. PointFive gives you the cloud-wide picture. KorPro gives you the Kubernetes-deep picture. Many teams use a cloud-wide visibility tool for macro analysis and a Kubernetes-specific tool for the granular cleanup work that broad tools miss.