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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Container Registry
  4. Container Tools
  5. Argo vs Watchtower

Argo vs Watchtower

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Argo
Argo
Stacks761
Followers470
Votes6
Watchtower
Watchtower
Stacks30
Followers36
Votes6
GitHub Stars24.0K
Forks1.0K

Argo vs Watchtower: What are the differences?

# Introduction
This Markdown code provides a comparison between Argo and Watchtower, two popular tools used in container orchestration. 

1. **Deployment Method**: Argo primarily focuses on Kubernetes and GitOps for managing containerized applications, while Watchtower is more versatile and can be used with various container runtimes like Docker and Kubernetes.
2. **Features**: Argo offers a wider range of features such as automated workflows, CI/CD pipelines, and GitOps functionalities, whereas Watchtower primarily specializes in automating the updates of containerized applications.
3. **Supported Registries**: Argo supports multiple container registries such as Docker Hub, while Watchtower is more limited in terms of registry support, primarily focusing on Docker Hub for image updates.
4. **Community Support**: Argo benefits from a larger community due to its wider set of functionalities and integration capabilities, which leads to more resources, support, and community-developed plugins. In contrast, Watchtower has a smaller user base and community support compared to Argo.
5. **Scalability**: Argo is more suitable for complex and large-scale environments due to its advanced workflow automation capabilities, making it ideal for enterprise use cases. Watchtower, on the other hand, is better suited for smaller deployments or simpler update requirements.
6. **Configuration Complexity**: Watchtower is known for its simplicity in configuration and setup, requiring minimal input to automate container updates, while Argo, with its abundance of features, can be more complex to configure and utilize effectively for inexperienced users.

In Summary, Argo and Watchtower differ in deployment methods, features, supported registries, community support, scalability, and configuration complexity.

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Detailed Comparison

Argo
Argo
Watchtower
Watchtower

Argo is an open source container-native workflow engine for getting work done on Kubernetes. Argo is implemented as a Kubernetes CRD (Custom Resource Definition).

It is an application that will monitor your running Docker containers and watch for changes to the images that those containers were originally started from. If it detects that an image has changed, it will automatically restart the container using the new image.

DAG or Steps based declaration of workflows;Artifact support (S3, Artifactory, HTTP, Git, raw);Step level input & outputs (artifacts/parameters);Loops;Parameterization;Conditionals;Timeouts (step & workflow level);Retry (step & workflow level);Resubmit (memoized);Suspend & Resume;Cancellation;K8s resource orchestration;Exit Hooks (notifications, cleanup);Garbage collection of completed workflow;Scheduling (affinity/tolerations/node selectors);Volumes (ephemeral/existing);Parallelism limits;Daemoned steps;DinD (docker-in-docker);Script steps
Notifications; Container selection; Private registries; Linked containers; Remote hosts; Secure connections; Lifecycle hooks
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
24.0K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
1.0K
Stacks
761
Stacks
30
Followers
470
Followers
36
Votes
6
Votes
6
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 3
    Open Source
  • 2
    Autosinchronize the changes to deploy
  • 1
    Online service, no need to install anything
Pros
  • 2
    Automation Friendly
  • 1
    Easy setup
  • 1
    Small footprint
  • 1
    Open-source
  • 1
    Great community
Integrations
Kubernetes
Kubernetes
Docker
Docker
Mattermost
Mattermost
Slack
Slack
Docker
Docker
Docker Compose
Docker Compose
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams
Telegram
Telegram
Discord
Discord
GNU Bash
GNU Bash
Hangouts
Hangouts

What are some alternatives to Argo, Watchtower?

Kubernetes

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.

Rancher

Rancher

Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.

Docker Compose

Docker Compose

With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.

Docker Swarm

Docker Swarm

Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.

Tutum

Tutum

Tutum lets developers easily manage and run lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers from any application. AWS-like control, Heroku-like ease. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale in Tutum.

Portainer

Portainer

It is a universal container management tool. It works with Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm and Azure ACI. It allows you to manage containers without needing to know platform-specific code.

Codefresh

Codefresh

Automate and parallelize testing. Codefresh allows teams to spin up on-demand compositions to run unit and integration tests as part of the continuous integration process. Jenkins integration allows more complex pipelines.

CAST.AI

CAST.AI

It is an AI-driven cloud optimization platform for Kubernetes. Instantly cut your cloud bill, prevent downtime, and 10X the power of DevOps.

k3s

k3s

Certified Kubernetes distribution designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances. Supports something as small as a Raspberry Pi or as large as an AWS a1.4xlarge 32GiB server.

Flocker

Flocker

Flocker is a data volume manager and multi-host Docker cluster management tool. With it you can control your data using the same tools you use for your stateless applications. This means that you can run your databases, queues and key-value stores in Docker and move them around as easily as the rest of your app.

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