As Kubernetes adoption grows, so does the need for more scalable, secure, and cost-effective multi-tenancy. At KubeCon EU 2025, LoftLabs announced its latest product, vNode, the next major step in its vision of virtualizing the cloud-native stack. VMblog sat down with Lukas Gentele, CEO of LoftLabs, to learn more about this new offering, how it fits into their broader product portfolio, and what it means for platform engineering teams.

VMblog: LoftLabs just announced a new product called vNode. What is it, and what problems does it solve?

Lukas Gentele: vNode is a virtual container runtime designed to bring stronger tenant isolation directly to the node level in Kubernetes. In a multi-tenant Kubernetes environment, isolating workloads by namespace or cluster is common, but node-level isolation has remained a challenge, especially without provisioning separate physical nodes for every tenant.

With vNode, platform teams can now create virtual nodes within a shared physical node. This gives each tenant the autonomy, security, and resource control they'd have on a dedicated node without the cost and complexity of managing dedicated hardware.

VMblog: Why is node-level isolation so important for platform engineering teams?

Gentele: As platform engineering teams scale internal Kubernetes platforms, isolation becomes critical. Tenants want autonomy over their environments, but they also need firm guarantees that workloads are secure and will not interfere with others.

Node-level isolation helps achieve this, and vNode makes it possible without sacrificing cost-efficiency. You no longer have to spin up extra infrastructure just to give a tenant that sense of isolation. Instead, vNode brings virtualization to the node level-just like we did with clusters using vCluster.

VMblog: How does vNode fit into the broader LoftLabs product vision?

Gentele: vNode is the next piece in what we call a fully virtualized cloud-native stack. We started with vCluster, which virtualizes Kubernetes clusters and gives tenants autonomy over their control plane. Then, we introduced DevPod, a containerized development environment for fast, cloud-native dev workflows. Now, with vNode, we're extending that model down to the node level.

Together, these tools help platform teams support multi-tenancy with less friction and more flexibility-from the dev environment all the way down to the runtime.

VMblog: You're also releasing some updates to vCluster. Can you tell us about those?

Gentele: Yes, we're excited to announce two new enhancements to vCluster. First, we've released an open source Rancher integration, which makes it easy for OSS users to create and manage virtual clusters directly in Rancher. It also syncs those clusters with the Rancher UI and automatically handles RBAC, so users see and manage only what they're supposed to.

Second, we introduced a new Snapshot & Restore feature for vCluster. This allows users to take a snapshot of a virtual cluster's full state and restore it at any time. It's great for backup and recovery, but also for use cases like cluster cloning, migration, or setting up dev/test environments. Unlike traditional backup tools that rely on kubectl and are often slow, vCluster's snapshot feature works directly with the backing store, making it much faster and more reliable.

VMblog: What kind of use cases are you seeing for vNode already?

Gentele: We're seeing strong interest from platform engineering teams at large enterprises that need tighter isolation between internal teams or business units. In regulated industries like finance or healthcare, node-level boundaries are often a requirement. But even outside of regulated spaces, vNode appeals to teams that are looking for more efficient resource sharing without compromising security.

It's also useful for cost-sensitive SaaS companies running multi-tenant environments who want to maximize node utilization but still give their customers strong boundaries.

VMblog: Where can readers learn more or try out vNode and the other LoftLabs tools?

Gentele: Everything we've announced-vNode, the new Rancher integration, and Snapshot & Restore-is available now. Readers can visit www.loft.sh to learn more, read documentation, and get started. We also encourage developers to join our Slack community and follow us on X. We're always happy to help teams explore how LoftLabs can fit into their platform stack.

And if you're attending KubeCon EU, stop by booth S281. We'll be giving live demos and are happy to chat.

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