Stop Using CPU Limits in Kubernetes: They Make Apps Slow and Costly

For the love of god stop using CPU limits in Kubernetes

A platform engineering analysis tests the same app with and without a CPU limit, finding that limits freeze apps many times per second even when the node has idle CPU, wrecking tail latency and slowing startup by 2x. The author argues that CPU limits provide no protection that requests don't already offer, while wasting idle capacity and driving up costs. They recommend removing CPU limits, keeping requests, and keeping memory limits, with a rollout plan and cost model showing potential savings of tens of thousands of dollars per cluster per year.