Argo vs Flux CD

Overview

Argo

Stacks761

Followers470

Votes6

Flux CD

Stacks81

Followers76

Votes1

GitHub Stars6.9K

Forks1.1K

Argo vs Flux CD: What are the differences?

Introduction

Argo and Flux CD are two popular open-source projects that are used for continuous deployment and GitOps practices in Kubernetes environments. While both tools serve similar purposes, they differ in several key aspects. In this article, we will discuss the key differences between Argo and Flux CD.

Architecture and Design: Argo follows a workflow-based approach where each step in the deployment process is defined as a separate resource. It provides features like workflows, cron jobs, and rolling updates. On the other hand, Flux CD is designed to handle continuous delivery and uses Git as the source of truth. It focuses on automated updating of workloads based on changes in Git repositories.
Compatibility and Integration: Argo is compatible with a wide range of Kubernetes distributions, including Kubernetes, OpenShift, and GKE. It can be integrated with various Git repositories, such as GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket. Conversely, Flux CD is also compatible with Kubernetes and can integrate with popular Git platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket.
Policy-based Deployments: Argo provides policy-based deployments, allowing users to define complex deployment strategies and manage application rollouts based on different conditions like percentage-based rollouts, blue-green deployments, and canary deployments. Flux CD, on the other hand, focuses more on the GitOps principle, where deployments are triggered by changes in the Git repository.
Multi-tenancy Support: Argo supports multi-tenancy by allowing the creation of multiple workflows, projects, and namespaces within a cluster. It provides RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) to manage access control at the individual project level. Flux CD, however, does not have built-in support for multi-tenancy, as it primarily relies on Git as the source of truth.
Helm Chart Support: Argo has native support for Helm charts and can deploy applications packaged as Helm charts. It provides features like automated Helm chart updates and rollback functionality. Flux CD, on the other hand, can also manage Helm releases but relies more on GitOps principles for application deployment.
User Interface and Ease of Use: Argo provides a web-based user interface called Argo Workflows UI, which allows users to create, manage, and monitor workflows visually. It offers a more interactive experience for managing complex workflows. Flux CD, on the other hand, does not provide a dedicated user interface but can be operated using the command line or integrated into existing CI/CD pipelines.

In summary, Argo and Flux CD differ in architecture, compatibility, deployment strategies, multi-tenancy support, Helm chart management, and user interface. Argo focuses on workflow-based deployments and offers a more comprehensive user interface, while Flux CD emphasizes the GitOps principle and provides integration with popular Git platforms.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Argo	Flux CD
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 a tool that automatically ensures that the state of your Kubernetes cluster matches the configuration you’ve supplied in Git. It uses an operator in the cluster to trigger deployments inside Kubernetes, which means that you don’t need a separate continuous delivery tool.
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	Describe the entire desired state of your system in Git. This includes apps, configuration, dashboards, monitoring, and everything else; Use YAML to enforce conformance to the declared system. You don’t need to run kubectl because all changes go through Git. Use diffing tools to detect divergence between observed and desired state and receive notifications; Everything is controlled through pull requests, which means no learning curve for new developers. Just use your standard PR process. Your Git history provides a sequence of transactions, allowing you to recover system state from any snapshot. Fix a production issue via pull request rather than making changes to the running system
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 6.9K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 1.1K
Stacks 761	Stacks 81
Followers 470	Followers 76
Votes 6	Votes 1
Pros & Cons
Pros 3 Open Source 2 Autosinchronize the changes to deploy 1 Online service, no need to install anything	Pros 1 Open Source
Integrations
Kubernetes Docker	Git Kubernetes YAML

What are some alternatives to Argo, Flux CD?

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 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.

Related Comparisons

Argo vs Flux CD: What are the differences?

Introduction

Architecture and Design: Argo follows a workflow-based approach where each step in the deployment process is defined as a separate resource. It provides features like workflows, cron jobs, and rolling updates. On the other hand, Flux CD is designed to handle continuous delivery and uses Git as the source of truth. It focuses on automated updating of workloads based on changes in Git repositories.
Compatibility and Integration: Argo is compatible with a wide range of Kubernetes distributions, including Kubernetes, OpenShift, and GKE. It can be integrated with various Git repositories, such as GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket. Conversely, Flux CD is also compatible with Kubernetes and can integrate with popular Git platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket.
Policy-based Deployments: Argo provides policy-based deployments, allowing users to define complex deployment strategies and manage application rollouts based on different conditions like percentage-based rollouts, blue-green deployments, and canary deployments. Flux CD, on the other hand, focuses more on the GitOps principle, where deployments are triggered by changes in the Git repository.
Multi-tenancy Support: Argo supports multi-tenancy by allowing the creation of multiple workflows, projects, and namespaces within a cluster. It provides RBAC (Role-Based Access Control) to manage access control at the individual project level. Flux CD, however, does not have built-in support for multi-tenancy, as it primarily relies on Git as the source of truth.
Helm Chart Support: Argo has native support for Helm charts and can deploy applications packaged as Helm charts. It provides features like automated Helm chart updates and rollback functionality. Flux CD, on the other hand, can also manage Helm releases but relies more on GitOps principles for application deployment.
User Interface and Ease of Use: Argo provides a web-based user interface called Argo Workflows UI, which allows users to create, manage, and monitor workflows visually. It offers a more interactive experience for managing complex workflows. Flux CD, on the other hand, does not provide a dedicated user interface but can be operated using the command line or integrated into existing CI/CD pipelines.

Argo vs Flux CD

Overview

Argo vs Flux CD: What are the differences?