Kubernetes Resource Management: LimitRange vs ResourceQuota

Managing resources in Kubernetes is critical for ensuring fair usage, stability, and predictable performance in a multi-tenant cluster. Two powerful tools provided by Kubernetes for this purpose are LimitRange and ResourceQuota.

This article explains what they are, their differences, and how to use them effectively.

What is LimitRange?

LimitRange is a Kubernetes policy object that sets default resource limits (CPU/memory) for containers in a namespace.

Use Case

To prevent pods from consuming excessive resources if developers forget to define limits.

Example

apiVersion: v1
kind: LimitRange
metadata:
  name: mem-limit-range
  namespace: dev
spec:
  limits:
  - default:
      memory: 512Mi
    defaultRequest:
      memory: 256Mi
    type: Container

This ensures all containers in the dev namespace will have a default memory limit and request.

What is ResourceQuota?

ResourceQuota enforces a hard limit on the total resources a namespace can consume.

Use Case

To control how much total CPU/memory/storage a team or environment uses.

Example

apiVersion: v1
kind: ResourceQuota
metadata:
  name: dev-quota
  namespace: dev
spec:
  hard:
    requests.cpu: "4"
    requests.memory: 4Gi
    limits.cpu: "8"
    limits.memory: 8Gi

This prevents the namespace from exceeding the defined total resources.

Key Differences

Best Practices

• Use both together to enforce defaults and total limits.
• Use kubectl describe quota and kubectl describe limitrange to debug.
• Monitor usage with metrics (e.g., Prometheus + Grafana).

Conclusion

Understanding and properly applying LimitRange and ResourceQuota is essential to run a stable, efficient, and secure Kubernetes cluster.