Overview

Kubernetes

Stacks61.2K

Followers52.8K

Votes685

Skaffold

Stacks87

Followers186

Votes0

Kubernetes vs Skaffold: What are the differences?

Introduction: Kubernetes and Skaffold are popular tools used in the world of DevOps for managing and automating containerized applications. While both serve functions in deploying and maintaining applications, there are key differences between the two.

Deployment Orchestration: Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform that manages the deployment, scaling, and operation of application containers across clusters of hosts. It provides a way to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. On the other hand, Skaffold is a tool specifically designed to streamline the development workflow for Kubernetes applications, focusing on automating the build, push, deploy, and clean-up cycle for developers.
Integration with CI/CD: Kubernetes itself is not a Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) tool, but it can be integrated with various CI/CD pipelines to automate the build, test, and deployment processes. Skaffold, on the other hand, is built with an emphasis on integrating seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines to facilitate the deployment of containerized applications to Kubernetes clusters.
Real-time Updates: Kubernetes supports rolling updates and canary deployments, allowing for seamless and zero-downtime updates to applications running in production. Skaffold, while it automates the deployment process, does not offer the same level of advanced deployment strategies for updating applications in real-time within Kubernetes clusters.
Developer Focus: Skaffold is primarily focused on enhancing the developer experience for Kubernetes applications by providing tools and workflows that speed up the development process. On the other hand, Kubernetes is a more comprehensive platform that caters to various aspects of container orchestration and management beyond just development needs.
Resource Management: Kubernetes offers extensive resource management capabilities, allowing users to define resource quotas, limits, and allocations for containers running in a cluster. Skaffold, however, does not have built-in resource management features and relies on Kubernetes for handling resource requirements.
User Interface: While Kubernetes can be interacted with through the CLI or various graphical user interfaces, Skaffold primarily operates through the command line interface. Skaffold’s focus on automation and developer-centric workflows means that it may not have the same level of graphical user interface as some Kubernetes management platforms.

In Summary, Kubernetes is a robust container orchestration platform that handles deployment, scaling, and operations across clusters, while Skaffold focuses on automating development workflows and integrating with CI/CD pipelines to streamline the deployment process for Kubernetes applications.

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Advice on Kubernetes, Skaffold

Simon

Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH

Apr 27, 2020

Decidedon

GitHub

GitHub Pages

Markdown

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.

12.8M views12.8M

Comments

Anis

Founder at Odix

Nov 7, 2020

Review

I recommend this : -Spring reactive for back end : the fact it's reactive (async) it consumes half of the resources that a sync platform needs (so less CPU -> less money). -Angular : Web Front end ; it's gives you the possibility to use PWA which is a cheap replacement for a mobile app (but more less popular). -Docker images. -Kubernetes to orchestrate all the containers. -I Use Jenkins / blueocean, ansible for my CI/CD (with Github of course) -AWS of course : u can run a K8S cluster there, make it multi AZ (availability zones) to be highly available, use a load balancer and an auto scaler and ur good to go. -You can store data by taking any managed DB or u can deploy ur own (cheap but risky).

You pay less money, but u need some technical 2 - 3 guys to make that done.

Good luck

115k views115k

Comments

Michael

CEO at asencis Ltd

Jan 5, 2021

Needs advice

We develop rapidly with docker-compose orchestrated services, however, for production - we utilise the very best ideas that Kubernetes has to offer: SCALE! We can scale when needed, setting a maximum and minimum level of nodes for each application layer - scaling only when the load balancer needs it. This allowed us to reduce our devops costs by 40% whilst also maintaining an SLA of 99.87%.

272k views272k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Kubernetes	Skaffold
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.	Skaffold is a command line tool that facilitates continuous development for Kubernetes applications. You can iterate on your application source code locally then deploy to local or remote Kubernetes clusters. Skaffold handles the workflow for building, pushing and deploying your application. It can also be used in an automated context such as a CI/CD pipeline to leverage the same workflow and tooling when moving applications to production.
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	No server-side component. No overhead to your cluster.;Detect changes in your source code and automatically build/push/deploy.;Image tag management. Stop worrying about updating the image tags in Kubernetes manifests to push out changes during development.;Supports existing tooling and workflows. Build and deploy APIs make each implementation composable to support many different workflows.;Support for multiple application components. Build and deploy only the pieces of your stack that have changed.;Deploy regularly when saving files or run one off deployments using the same configuration
Statistics
Stacks 61.2K	Stacks 87
Followers 52.8K	Followers 186
Votes 685	Votes 0
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	No community feedback yet
Integrations
Vagrant Docker Rackspace Cloud Servers Microsoft Azure Google Compute Engine Ansible Google Kubernetes Engine	Google Kubernetes Engine Docker

What are some alternatives to Kubernetes, Skaffold?

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.