Creator here. We built Radar because the Kubernetes dashboard/IDE space got frustrating:

- Lens got acquired, went partially closed-source, became slow, now requires login

- k9s is solid but terminal-only with a steep learning curve

- Official Kubernetes Dashboard is archived (Headlamp is the successor but missing features and not amazing UX)

- Enterprise tools want per-node pricing and mandatory cloud sync

We had built internal tooling at Skyhook for debugging clusters. Customers kept asking for it, so we carved it out and open-sourced it.

Radar is local-first: single binary, runs on your machine (or can install on cluster if you prefer), uses your Kubeconfig, blazing fast. No agents, no CRDs, no account. Works airgapped.

What it does:

- Topology graph - visualize how resources connect (ownership chains, service→pod routing, ingress paths)

- Resource browser with YAML editing (Monaco), logs, exec into pods

- Real-time timeline of events and resource changes

- Helm management - inspect, upgrade, rollback from UI

- FluxCD and ArgoCD support - sync status and operations built-in

- Network traffic visualization via Cilium Hubble or Caretta

- Container image filesystem inspection without exec

Tech: Go backend using client-go SharedInformers, changes pushed to browser via SSE. React frontend embedded in binary. ~30MB total.

Install: brew install skyhook-io/tap/radar && kubectl radar

Fastest (we timed 15 seconds from hitting install to live dashboard): curl -fsSL skyhook.io/get-radar.sh | bash && kubectl radar

Apache 2.0, free forever. We're the Skyhook team (YC W23).

Happy to answer questions about architecture, K8s informer patterns, or anything else - and would love to hear what you think!