AWS Fargate vs Kubernetes

Overview

Kubernetes

Stacks61.2K

Followers52.8K

Votes685

AWS Fargate

Stacks650

Followers413

Votes0

AWS Fargate vs Kubernetes: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will explore the key differences between AWS Fargate and Kubernetes. Both of these technologies are widely used in the containerization world, but they have distinct features and use cases. Let's dive into the details.

Management and Control: AWS Fargate is a fully managed service provided by Amazon Web Services, which means that AWS handles many aspects of the infrastructure management, such as server provisioning, scaling, and maintenance. On the other hand, Kubernetes requires the user to set up and manage their own cluster, which includes provisioning and configuring the underlying infrastructure.
Scalability and Elasticity: With AWS Fargate, scaling is automated and handled by AWS. It allows you to easily scale your containers up or down based on demand. Kubernetes also provides scaling capabilities, but it requires more manual configuration and management. It is up to the user to set up and configure the scaling policies and mechanisms.
Cost Model: AWS Fargate follows a pay-as-you-go model, where you only pay for the resources you use and the duration of your tasks or services. It offers a fine-grained cost structure. Kubernetes, on the other hand, requires you to provision and manage your own server resources, which may result in higher operational costs depending on the size and complexity of your infrastructure.
Vendor Lock-in: AWS Fargate is tightly integrated with the Amazon Web Services ecosystem and may result in vendor lock-in. While it provides ease of use and seamless integration with other AWS services, it may limit your ability to migrate to other cloud providers in the future. Kubernetes, being an open-source platform, offers more flexibility and can be deployed on various cloud providers or even on-premises.
Advanced Features and Flexibility: Kubernetes is a mature and feature-rich platform that provides a wide range of capabilities for container orchestration, such as advanced networking, scheduling, storage, and logging. It offers more customization options and flexibility compared to AWS Fargate, which is a more simplified and streamlined solution focused on ease of use and managed infrastructure.
Community and Ecosystem: Kubernetes has a large and active community of users, contributors, and developers. It has a vast ecosystem of tools, plugins, and integrations, making it the de facto standard for container orchestration. AWS Fargate, being a managed service, has a smaller community and ecosystem, which means it may have limited options for third-party integrations and customizations.

In summary, AWS Fargate is a fully managed service provided by AWS that simplifies container orchestration by handling infrastructure management, scaling, and maintenance. It offers automation and ease of use but may result in vendor lock-in. On the other hand, Kubernetes provides more flexibility, advanced features, and a larger community and ecosystem, but requires more manual setup and management of the underlying infrastructure. Choose the option that best fits your specific requirements and preferences.

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Advice on Kubernetes, AWS Fargate

Simon

Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH

Apr 27, 2020

Decidedon

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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	AWS Fargate
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.	AWS Fargate is a technology for Amazon ECS and EKS* that allows you to run containers without having to manage servers or clusters. With AWS Fargate, you no longer have to provision, configure, and scale clusters of virtual machines to run containers.
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 clusters to manage; seamless scaling; Integrated with Amazon ECS and EKS
Statistics
Stacks 61.2K	Stacks 650
Followers 52.8K	Followers 413
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	Cons 2 Expensive
Integrations
Vagrant Docker Rackspace Cloud Servers Microsoft Azure Google Compute Engine Ansible Google Kubernetes Engine	Docker Amazon EC2 Container Service Amazon CloudWatch AWS IAM Amazon VPC

What are some alternatives to Kubernetes, AWS Fargate?

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.

Amazon EC2 Container Service

Amazon EC2 Container Service lets you launch and stop container-enabled applications with simple API calls, allows you to query the state of your cluster from a centralized service, and gives you access to many familiar Amazon EC2 features like security groups, EBS volumes and IAM roles.

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.

Google Kubernetes Engine

Container Engine takes care of provisioning and maintaining the underlying virtual machine cluster, scaling your application, and operational logistics like logging, monitoring, and health management.

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.

Containerum

Containerum is built to aid cluster management, teamwork and resource allocation. Containerum runs on top of any Kubernetes cluster and provides a friendly Web UI for cluster management.

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.

Related Comparisons

AWS Fargate vs Kubernetes: What are the differences?

Introduction

Management and Control: AWS Fargate is a fully managed service provided by Amazon Web Services, which means that AWS handles many aspects of the infrastructure management, such as server provisioning, scaling, and maintenance. On the other hand, Kubernetes requires the user to set up and manage their own cluster, which includes provisioning and configuring the underlying infrastructure.
Scalability and Elasticity: With AWS Fargate, scaling is automated and handled by AWS. It allows you to easily scale your containers up or down based on demand. Kubernetes also provides scaling capabilities, but it requires more manual configuration and management. It is up to the user to set up and configure the scaling policies and mechanisms.
Cost Model: AWS Fargate follows a pay-as-you-go model, where you only pay for the resources you use and the duration of your tasks or services. It offers a fine-grained cost structure. Kubernetes, on the other hand, requires you to provision and manage your own server resources, which may result in higher operational costs depending on the size and complexity of your infrastructure.
Vendor Lock-in: AWS Fargate is tightly integrated with the Amazon Web Services ecosystem and may result in vendor lock-in. While it provides ease of use and seamless integration with other AWS services, it may limit your ability to migrate to other cloud providers in the future. Kubernetes, being an open-source platform, offers more flexibility and can be deployed on various cloud providers or even on-premises.
Advanced Features and Flexibility: Kubernetes is a mature and feature-rich platform that provides a wide range of capabilities for container orchestration, such as advanced networking, scheduling, storage, and logging. It offers more customization options and flexibility compared to AWS Fargate, which is a more simplified and streamlined solution focused on ease of use and managed infrastructure.
Community and Ecosystem: Kubernetes has a large and active community of users, contributors, and developers. It has a vast ecosystem of tools, plugins, and integrations, making it the de facto standard for container orchestration. AWS Fargate, being a managed service, has a smaller community and ecosystem, which means it may have limited options for third-party integrations and customizations.

AWS Fargate vs Kubernetes

Overview

AWS Fargate vs Kubernetes: What are the differences?