Kubernetes and Docker serve different, albeit complementary, roles in the container ecosystem. Docker Swarm is used to managing containers which comes with the enterprise edition and not preferred by most companies. Bookmark these resources to learn about types of DevOps teams, or for ongoing updates about DevOps at Atlassian. Docker Swarm relies on transport-layer security (TLS) to carry out access control-related tasks. Compared to Docker Swarm, Kubernetes has a more complex installation and requires more manual effort.

For many businesses and developers this won’t be a major problem especially if you only need basic information about your containers. However, if you want more advanced monitoring that gathers data in real-time Docker is not the most compatible platform. Once you have completely tested your containerized application it can be deployed to any other system where Docker is running and it will continue to function effectively. Docker works also with other providers like Microsoft Azure, and OpenStack, and can be used with various configuration managers like Chef, Puppet, and Ansible.

Kubernetes

In addition, it includes a large and active developer community that provides technical support and networking opportunities. Kubernetes’ inherent extensibility and horizontal scaling capabilities make it the most scalable compared to Docker. For example, Kubernetes can support up to 5,000 nodes vs Docker Swarm’s 1,000 nodes and 30,000 containers (30 containers per node) instead of 300,000 containers on Kubernetes.

Your existing software needs to be adapted to run easily with Kubernetes. The time this adaptation and transition will take can be difficult to estimate and will be heavily dependent on the type of software you already run. The choice will not be easy, and to make the final decision you should be aware of the advantages and limitations of both Kubernetes and Docker. Kinsta’s feature-packed, high-performance cloud platform includes Kubernetes for maximum scalability.

Can I use Kubernetes and Docker together?

The main advantages of Docker are portability, great, performance, reduced deployment time down, and isolated recourses. The Kubernetes development workflow can take some time to get used to and you will want to have at least one Kubernetes expert on your engineering team. The multi-cloud capability of Kubernetes is what makes the platform to stand out as well as its portability and adaptability. The two are fundamentally different technologies that are often pitted against each other in conversations concerning containers. Docker’s simplicity and straightforward approach to containerization make it relatively easy to learn and integrate into development workflows.

Kubernetes comes with a powerful API and command line tool, called kubectl, which handles a bulk of the heavy lifting that goes into container management by allowing you to automate your operations. The controller pattern in Kubernetes ensures applications/containers run exactly as specified. Kubernetes (sometimes referred to as K8s) is a popular open source platform that orchestrates container runtime systems across a cluster of networked resources. A place to share, discuss, discover, assist with, gain assistance for, and critique self-hosted alternatives to our favorite web apps, web services, and online tools. When a developer creates a container using Docker, they specify the application and its dependencies, along with any configuration files or settings needed for the application to run.

The most popular Docker orchestration tool

However, as applications become increasingly complex, they’re difficult to manually manage, maintain, and migrate across different environments. No matter which container orchestration solution you choose, it’s important to use a tool to manage the complexity of your distributed architecture as you scale. Atlassian Compass is an extensible developer experience platform that brings disconnected information about engineering output and team collaboration together in a central, searchable location. Developers can create containers without Docker but the Docker platform makes it easier to do so. These container images can then be deployed and run on any platform that supports containers, such as Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, Mesos, or HashiCorp Nomad.

Docker ships and deploys applications on a single node, and Kubernetes manages applications across a cluster of nodes. When deployed together, Docker and Kubernetes can benefit from each other, giving applications scalability, agility, and resiliency. In cloud environments, containerization technology makes it possible to provide operational efficiency, portability when migrating, environmental consistency, and seamless scaling. Docker excels in containerization, while Kubernetes focuses on orchestration.

What kind of Experience do you want to share?

This frees developers to focus on writing application code and not the underlying compute, networking, or storage infrastructure. Kubernetes works by using a set of abstractions to represent the different components of an application. Pods are the smallest and simplest unit in the Kubernetes object model and represent a single container. Replication Controllers ensure that a specified number of replicas of a Pod are running at any given time. If you want a complete package with monitoring, security features, self-healing, high availability, and absolute flexibility for tricky or complex projects, then Kubernetes is the right choice. In contrast, Kubernetes has built-in monitoring and supports integration with third-party monitoring tools.

• Hold this thought for a minute and visualize all these containers and nodes in your mind.
• Leveraging Docker’s tools with Kubernetes orchestration, developers can streamline the development process, ensure application security, and accelerate deployment.
• OpenShift also provides premium support, a user-friendly login portal, and supports multiple programming languages (Go, Node.js, Java, Ruby, Python, and PHP).
• By harnessing Docker’s dev tools with Kubernetes, developers can respond nimbly to market demands, streamline development processes, and ensure secure and efficient containerized applications.
• Docker Swarm is a lightweight, easy-to-use orchestration tool with limited offerings compared to Kubernetes.
• The multi-cloud capability of Kubernetes is one of the standout features of the platform and is part of the reason it has been so successful in recent years.

Containers are grouped into pods, the basic operational unit in Kubernetes, which can then be managed as a single entity, simplifying deployment and scaling. Unlike virtual machines that require a full operating system to run each application, Docker containers share the host OS kernel and run as isolated processes, ensuring lightweight and fast operation. This efficient use of system resources allows for a high density of containers on a single host, maximizing utilization and minimizing docker what is it overhead. The ability to quickly start, stop, and replicate containers makes Docker ideal for scaling applications in response to demand. By leveraging Kubernetes with Docker, developers and operators get a robust framework for deploying, maintaining, and scaling containerized applications. Docker simplifies the creation of containers and their dependencies, while Kubernetes orchestrates these containers’ deployment and runtime behavior, making the system more resilient and scalable.

Moreover, Kuberenetes is also compatible with almost any type of underlying infrastructure – whether it is a public cloud, a private cloud, or an on-premises server. Docker allows you to package and run an application in an isolated environment called a container. It’s a similar concept to a Virtual Machine, although a container is less isolated than a VM. Docker launched in 2013, enabling containerization with unparalleled efficiency and ease of use.

First developed by Google in 2014, Kubernetes (K8s) is now maintained by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Docker excels in containerization, providing a straightforward approach to creating and managing container images for consistent deployments. If the burden is not heavy, choosing Docker Swarm instead of Kubernetes is a smart option.

Built-in container orchestration

Now containers basically offer a logical packaging mechanism in which applications can be abstracted from the environment in which they actually run. When used together, Kubernetes and Docker containers can provide several benefits for organizations that want to deploy and manage containerized applications at scale. Organizations use Kubernetes to automate the deployment and management of containerized applications. Rather than individually managing each container in a cluster, a DevOps team can instead tell Kubernetes how to allocate the necessary resources in advance.