---
title: "Discussion on \"The Myths (and Costs) of Running Node.js on Kubernetes\" | Hashnode"
description: "Discussion on \"The Myths (and Costs) of Running Node.js on Kubernetes\". Explore the challenges and hidden costs of running Node.js on Kubernetes, and learn how to optimize for better scalability and cost efficiency"
url: "https://hashnode.com/posts/the-myths-and-costs-of-running-nodejs-on-kubernetes/68d162e1907f0daa5f595ce4"
---

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Discussion

# [The Myths (and Costs) of Running Node.js on Kubernetes](https://blog.platformatic.dev/the-myths-and-costs-of-running-nodejs-on-kubernetes?utm_source=hashnode&utm_medium=feed)

Explore the challenges and hidden costs of running Node.js on Kubernetes, and learn how to optimize for better scalability and cost efficiency

Sep 22, 2025 · 5 min read · blog.platformatic.dev  
Read the article

-   [#nodejs](https://hashnode.com/tag/nodejs)
-   [#k8s](https://hashnode.com/tag/k8s)

## Written by

[Luca Maraschi](https://hashnode.com/@lucamaraschi)

@lucamaraschi

  
[View profile](https://hashnode.com/@lucamaraschi)

## Responses 4

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[Anton Melser](https://hashnode.com/@AntonOfTheWoods)

[Sep 25, 2025](https://hashnode.com/posts/the-myths-and-costs-of-running-nodejs-on-kubernetes/68d162e1907f0daa5f595ce4/comment/68d4b45cb0db98a89425736d)

What a load of rubbish. What, pray tell, do you want to replace it with? Bare metal? VPS? You think that is more elastic and cost effective? If you can run stuff on Lambda or similar, fine. But that's a fundamentally platform and set of affordances and constraints, that may or may not fit...

So you need to have proper SRE/DevOps engineers running your platform. How bout you "full stack script kiddies" realise that platform engineering is actually complicated and requires more that just knowing about the latest fashionable bundler!

[Anders](https://hashnode.com/@anri)

[Sep 23, 2025](https://hashnode.com/posts/the-myths-and-costs-of-running-nodejs-on-kubernetes/68d162e1907f0daa5f595ce4/comment/68d2e44e73f451c0fce862ac)

Good article. Some bulletpoints from my experience running an e-commerce shop on GKE - no clustering.

-   On GKE (GCP) one can leverage performance HPA for more aggressive autoscaling. Recommended - as baseline set of service can be kept smaller.
-   Use a distinct metrics-endpoint for HPA - one which is queried much more frequently compared to your “normal” metrics-endpoint.
-   Article optimizing-nodejs-performance-v8-memory-management-and-gc-tuning - great article. Ensure optimal memory segmentation as compute (CPU) is more expensive than data (memory). This was a very good improvement.
-   We use request per second, ELU and CPU as distinct metrics for autoscaling. They work good in combination.
-   Use a local DNS cache.
-   Use another allocator instead of malloc - jemalloc (even despite being archived) is a good choice. Manage to keep memory under control. THP are recommended for optimal allocation.

More points obviously - happy to discuss if anyone need input.

[Ryan Hamonangan](https://hashnode.com/@drweb123)

[Sep 23, 2025](https://hashnode.com/posts/the-myths-and-costs-of-running-nodejs-on-kubernetes/68d162e1907f0daa5f595ce4/comment/68d2bae5ab874e92bc113bb7)

i have been manage node on k8s for years. from my experience. it depends based on application types.

is it b2b? employees only? set auto minimum higher on working hours.

is it only crud/db + some http call to another vendor? yeah burstable as this article mention

is it running some heavy duty worker. like sharp (image processing) / report server using puppeteer for example. so its nodejs but underneath it there is something like c++ Library. then autonscale based on metrics is good.