Longhorn vs Rook: Key Differences & When to Use Each

Comprehensive side-by-side comparison of features, pricing, and metrics

Key Differences

Compare Longhorn and Rook across features, pricing, integrations, and community metrics. Longhorn / Rook.

Feature

Longhorn

Storage

Rook

Storage

Side-by-side comparison of developer tools
Distributed block storage for Kubernetes
Cloud-native storage orchestrator for Kubernetes
GitHub Stars
⭐ 7,917
⭐ 13,600
Contributors
👥 165
👥 694
Pricing
✓ Free
Enterprise: Contact sales
✓ Free
Enterprise: Contact sales
Languages
Shell
Go
Features
  • • Cncf
  • • Distributed Systems
  • • High Availability
  • • K8s Sig Storage
  • • Kubernetes
  • • Ceph
  • • Cloud Native
  • • Cncf
  • • Docker
  • • Etcd
Integrations
  • • kubernetes
  • • kubernetes
  • • docker
Momentum Score
45/100 (slowing)
70/100 (stable)
Community Health
23/100 (needs-attention)
72/100 (good)
Maturity Index
18/100 (experimental)
49/100 (emerging)
Innovation Score
26/100 (traditional)
64/100 (progressive)
Risk Score (higher is safer)
22/100 (high)
54/100 (low)
Developer Experience
25/100 (poor)
95/100 (excellent)
Links
🌐 Visit Website View on GitHub
🌐 Visit Website View on GitHub

Longhorn Strengths

Rook Strengths

  • ✓ More popular (13,600 stars)
  • ✓ Larger community (694 contributors)

When to Use Longhorn vs Rook

Use Longhorn when its strengths align better with your stack and team needs, and choose Rook when its ecosystem, integrations, or cost profile is a better fit.

Related comparisons

Longhorn vs MinIO → Rook vs MinIO → Longhorn vs Kubernetes → Rook vs Kubernetes → Longhorn vs Docker → Rook vs Docker → Longhorn vs Istio → Rook vs Istio → Longhorn vs Docker Compose → Rook vs Docker Compose → Longhorn vs Drone → Rook vs Drone →

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Data source: GitHub API

Last updated: 8/17/2026