# How many nodes can be managed in a single k8s cluster?

**URL:** <https://discuss.kubernetes.io/t/how-many-nodes-can-be-managed-in-a-single-k8s-cluster/31361>\
**Category:** General Discussions\
**Created:** [January 22, 2025, 10:42am UTC](https://discuss.kubernetes.io/t/how-many-nodes-can-be-managed-in-a-single-k8s-cluster/31361 "2025-01-22T10:42:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lengcangche-gituhub](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.kubernetes.io/lengcangche-gituhub/32/16809_2.png) [@lengcangche-gituhub](https://discuss.kubernetes.io/u/lengcangche-gituhub)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 10:42am UTC](https://discuss.kubernetes.io/t/how-many-nodes-can-be-managed-in-a-single-k8s-cluster/31361/1 "2025-01-22T10:42:13Z")

</div>

I want to know the largest number of nodes that can be managed in a single k8s cluster. If I want to mange 10000 nodes, can I set up only one k8s cluster?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mrbobbytables](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.kubernetes.io/mrbobbytables/32/7_2.png) [@mrbobbytables](https://discuss.kubernetes.io/u/mrbobbytables)\
**Post date:** [January 22, 2025, 11:03am UTC](https://discuss.kubernetes.io/t/how-many-nodes-can-be-managed-in-a-single-k8s-cluster/31361/2 "2025-01-22T11:03:15Z")

</div>

The limiting factor is really etcd. The largest cluster that I know of using etcd is 20,000 nodes. GKE supports clusters up to 65,000 nodes using Spanner as their backend instead of etcd.

> **[Google Kubernetes Engine supports 65,000-node clusters | Google Cloud Blog](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/containers-kubernetes/gke-65k-nodes-and-counting)**
>
> With support for 65,000-node clusters, Google Kubernetes Engine offers more than 10X larger scale than the other two largest public cloud providers.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![lengcangche-gituhub](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.kubernetes.io/lengcangche-gituhub/32/16809_2.png) [@lengcangche-gituhub](https://discuss.kubernetes.io/u/lengcangche-gituhub)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 2:29am UTC](https://discuss.kubernetes.io/t/how-many-nodes-can-be-managed-in-a-single-k8s-cluster/31361/3 "2025-04-02T02:29:09Z")

</div>

Thank you very much!