Harbor vs Kubernetes

Overview

Kubernetes

Stacks61.2K

Followers52.8K

Votes685

Harbor

Stacks182

Followers185

Votes11

GitHub Stars26.8K

Forks5.0K

Harbor vs Kubernetes: What are the differences?

Introduction:

Harbor and Kubernetes are both open-source containerization platforms that serve different purposes. Harbor is a container image registry, while Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform. Understanding the key differences between these two technologies is essential for organizations to effectively manage containers and streamline their containerization strategies.

Integration with container runtimes: Harbor primarily focuses on managing container images, whereas Kubernetes is designed to orchestrate containerized applications. Harbor integrates with container runtimes like Docker and containerd to store and distribute container images securely. On the other hand, Kubernetes manages the deployment, scaling, and monitoring of containers across a cluster of nodes, ensuring the availability and efficient utilization of resources.
Functionality: Harbor provides features like image scanning, vulnerability assessment, and access control policies to ensure the security of container images. It allows users to push, pull, and manage images with versioning and replication capabilities. Kubernetes, on the other hand, offers functionalities like automatic scaling, load balancing, service discovery, and rolling updates to ensure high availability and resilience of containerized applications.
Scope of operations: Harbor is a container registry, primarily used for storing and distributing container images within an organization. It serves as a centralized repository where developers can push, pull, and manage container images. Kubernetes, on the other hand, goes beyond just storing container images. It manages the entire lifecycle of containerized applications, handling deployment, scaling, monitoring, and orchestration of containers across a cluster.
Level of abstraction: Harbor operates at a lower level of abstraction compared to Kubernetes. It deals with container images and focuses on image management, security, and access control. Kubernetes, on the other hand, operates at a higher level of abstraction, handling the deployment and management of applications composed of multiple containers. It provides abstractions like pods, services, and deployments to simplify the container management process.
User base and community support: Kubernetes has a larger user base and an extensive open-source community supporting its development and maintenance. It is widely adopted by organizations for their container orchestration needs and enjoys continuous improvements and contributions from the community. Harbor, while also having an active community, has a smaller user base as it serves a specific purpose as a container registry.
Adoptability across platforms: Kubernetes is a platform-agnostic container orchestration platform. It can run on various cloud providers, on-premises data centers, and even edge devices. It provides a consistent and standardized way to manage containers across different environments. Harbor, on the other hand, can be used with Kubernetes as its container registry, making it compatible with Kubernetes deployments, but it is not limited to Kubernetes and can be utilized with other container orchestrators as well.

In summary, Harbor is a container image registry focused on securing and distributing container images, while Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform that manages the deployment, scaling, and monitoring of containerized applications. While Harbor focuses on container images, Kubernetes handles the overall management and orchestration of containers.

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Advice on Kubernetes, Harbor

Simon

Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH

Apr 27, 2020

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Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:

@{GitHub}|tool:27| (incl. @{GitHub Pages}|tool:683|/@{Markdown}|tool:1147| for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
Respectively @{Git}|tool:1046| as revision control system
@{SourceTree}|tool:1599| as @{Git}|tool:1046| GUI
@{Visual Studio Code}|tool:4202| as IDE
@{CircleCI}|tool:190| for continuous integration (automatize development process)
@{Prettier}|tool:7035| / @{TSLint}|tool:5561| / @{ESLint}|tool:3337| as code linter
@{SonarQube}|tool:2638| as quality gate
@{Docker}|tool:586| as container management (incl. @{Docker Compose}|tool:3136| for multi-container application management)
@{VirtualBox}|tool:774| for operating system simulation tests
@{Kubernetes}|tool:1885| as cluster management for docker containers
@{Heroku}|tool:133| for deploying in test environments
@{nginx}|tool:1052| as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
@{SSLMate}|tool:2752| (using @{OpenSSL}|tool:3091|) for certificate management
@{Amazon EC2}|tool:18| (incl. @{Amazon S3}|tool:25|) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
@{PostgreSQL}|tool:1028| as preferred database system
@{Redis}|tool:1031| as preferred in-memory database/store (great for caching)

The main reason we have chosen Kubernetes over Docker Swarm is related to the following artifacts:

Key features: Easy and flexible installation, Clear dashboard, Great scaling operations, Monitoring is an integral part, Great load balancing concepts, Monitors the condition and ensures compensation in the event of failure.
Applications: An application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).
Functionality: Kubernetes as a complex installation and setup process, but it not as limited as Docker Swarm.
Monitoring: It supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster (Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK), Heapster/Grafana, Sysdig cloud integration).
Scalability: All-in-one framework for distributed systems.
Other Benefits: Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), huge community among container orchestration tools, it is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.

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Detailed Comparison

Kubernetes	Harbor
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.	Harbor is an open source cloud native registry that stores, signs, and scans container images for vulnerabilities. Harbor solves common challenges by delivering trust, compliance, performance, and interoperability. It fills a gap for organ
Lightweight, simple and accessible;Built for a multi-cloud world, public, private or hybrid;Highly modular, designed so that all of its components are easily swappable	Multi-tenant content signing and validation;Image replication between instances;Extensible API and graphical UI;Security and vulnerability analysis;Identity integration and role-based access control;Internationalization
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 26.8K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 5.0K
Stacks 61.2K	Stacks 182
Followers 52.8K	Followers 185
Votes 685	Votes 11
Pros & Cons
Pros 166 Leading docker container management solution 130 Simple and powerful 108 Open source 76 Backed by google 58 The right abstractions Cons 16 Steep learning curve 15 Poor workflow for development 8 Orchestrates only infrastructure 4 High resource requirements for on-prem clusters 2 Too heavy for simple systems	Pros 4 Good on-premises container registry 1 Container Replication 1 Perfect for Teams and Organizations 1 Nice UI 1 Supports OIDC
Integrations
Vagrant Docker Rackspace Cloud Servers Microsoft Azure Google Compute Engine Ansible Google Kubernetes Engine	Docker Helm

What are some alternatives to Kubernetes, Harbor?

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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 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.

Kitematic

Simple Docker App management for Mac OS X

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