There are a lot of options available for deploying kubernetes including Redshift, CoreOS, hosted options. I was wondering if there is anyone exploring kubeadm for non-prod enironments. Is it a viable option for standing up a multi-node k8s cluster. Thanks in advance.
Yes, kubeadm is a viable option for a non-production cluster, but it is currently (late 2017) undergoing significant development. Two features that I would watch closely are support for upgrades, and support for HA masters. Currently kops has support for both, so you might consider that as an alternative if you need those features.
There are many other differences between the two, so its impossible to recommend one over the other, but in general, I would recommend kubeadm for learning about kubernetes (especially the provisioning aspect, and what is required for a running cluster) and kops if you just need a mostly-production-ready cluster.
(I don't have experience with other provisioning tools, so I can't comment on them, but there are many worth looking at.)
In the future, the kubeadm maintainers want kubeadm to provide the plumbing and so that other provisioning tools can build off of it in a more opinionated way.