Autoscaling

Horizontal autoscaling adds replicas to your deployment under load and removes them when traffic drops, based on live CPU and memory usage. Turn it on for any web or worker deployment and Ownkube owns the replica count from then on.

Enable it from the deployment Settings tab in your dashboard.

How it works

Autoscaling watches your containers’ average CPU and memory usage. When usage crosses a target threshold, it adds replicas; when usage drops back below the threshold, it removes them. Scaling reacts within seconds of a sustained change.

CPU-based

Scale up when average CPU exceeds your target (e.g. 70%).

Memory-based

Scale up when average memory exceeds your target (e.g. 80%).

You can use one signal, both, or neither. Autoscaling acts on whichever threshold is crossed first.

What you configure

• Min replicas: the floor. Autoscaling won’t go below this number.
• Max replicas: the ceiling. Capped at 100 per deployment.
• Target CPU utilization: percentage of the CPU request (e.g. 70 means scale up once containers average 70% CPU).
• Target memory utilization: percentage of the memory request.

Tip

Resource requests matter when autoscaling is on. The target utilization is measured against the request, so an honest request gives you honest scaling. Set your request to your app’s steady-state floor, not a wishful peak.

A typical setup

For a web service that sees variable traffic through the day:

Setting	Value
Min replicas	2
Max replicas	10
Target CPU utilization	70%
Target memory utilization	80%
CPU request	250m
Memory request	256Mi

This keeps at least two replicas always warm, bursts up to ten under load, and scales back down once traffic drops.

When autoscaling takes over

Once autoscaling is enabled, the fixed replica count field is ignored. Autoscaling owns replica count from that point forward. Turn autoscaling off to return to a manual replica count.

Note

Autoscaling is supported on web and worker deployments. Jobs run to completion and don’t scale; databases have their own scaling model described on the Databases page.

Scaling the underlying compute

On Ownkube-hosted compute, the capacity underneath your replicas scales automatically. There’s nothing to configure: you set the replica range and Ownkube handles the rest.

Note

Running in your own AWS account? That’s the Advanced path: the underlying node capacity for a cluster can scale too. See Clusters.

Limits and constraints

• Max replicas is capped at 100 per deployment
• Scale-to-zero isn’t supported yet. Minimum is 1 when autoscaling is on; you can pause a deployment to 0 manually.
• Autoscaling uses resource requests as its baseline. Deployments without requests can’t autoscale reliably.

Deployments Resource types and the full config field reference.

Cost optimization How autoscaling fits into Ownkube's overall cost model.

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Note

Don’t see a feature you need? Email support@ownkube.io. Ownkube is shaped by the teams using it and we ship what our users ask for.