Docker Compose vs Rancher

Overview

Rancher

Stacks952

Followers1.5K

Votes644

Docker Compose

Stacks22.3K

Followers16.5K

Votes501

GitHub Stars36.4K

Forks5.5K

Docker Compose vs Rancher: What are the differences?

On-Demand Infrastructure Orchestration: Docker Compose is a tool that allows users to define and manage multi-container Docker applications. It is mainly focused on local development and deployment of Docker containers on a single host. On the other hand, Rancher is a complete container management platform that provides on-demand infrastructure orchestration capabilities. It allows users to manage and deploy containers across multiple hosts, either on-premises or in the cloud.
Multi-Host Container Orchestration: Docker Compose is designed to work with a single host, meaning it cannot manage containers on multiple machines. Rancher, on the other hand, has built-in support for multi-host container orchestration. It uses the native orchestration tools like Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, and Mesos to deploy and manage containers across a cluster of hosts.
Service Discovery and Load Balancing: Docker Compose relies on Docker's internal DNS service for service discovery and provides basic load balancing capabilities. Rancher, on the other hand, provides advanced service discovery and load balancing features. It automatically detects and manages container services, assigns them DNS names, and distributes incoming traffic across the containers using built-in load balancers.
Health Checks and Auto Recovery: While Docker Compose allows users to specify health check parameters for containers, it does not have built-in auto-recovery capabilities. Rancher, on the other hand, provides advanced health checking mechanisms and can automatically restart failed containers or reschedule them on healthy hosts.
Centralized Management and Monitoring: Docker Compose does not provide centralized management and monitoring capabilities. Rancher, on the other hand, provides a centralized management interface where users can monitor and manage the entire container infrastructure. It also includes features like logging, metrics, and alerts for comprehensive container monitoring.
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Docker Compose does not have native RBAC capabilities. Rancher, however, includes RBAC functionality that allows administrators to define roles and permissions for users and teams. This ensures that only authorized users have access to specific resources and actions in the container infrastructure.

In Summary, Docker Compose is focused on local development and deployment of containers on a single host, while Rancher provides on-demand orchestration, multi-host support, advanced service discovery, health checks, centralized management, and RBAC capabilities for managing containers across multiple hosts.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs

CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Advice on Rancher, Docker Compose

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

Rancher	Docker Compose
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.	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.
Manage Hosts, Deploy Containers, Monitor Resources;User Management & Collaboration;Native Docker APIs & Tools;Monitoring and Logging;Connect Containers, Manage Disks, Deploy Load Balancers;Docker App Catalog; Included Kubernetes Distribution;Included Docker Swarm Distribution; Included Mesos Distribution;Infrastructure Management	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 36.4K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 5.5K
Stacks 952	Stacks 22.3K
Followers 1.5K	Followers 16.5K
Votes 644	Votes 501
Pros & Cons
Pros 103 Easy to use 79 Open source and totally free 63 Multi-host docker-compose support 58 Load balancing and health check included 58 Simple Cons 10 Hosting Rancher can be complicated	Pros 123 Multi-container descriptor 110 Fast development environment setup 79 Easy linking of containers 68 Simple yaml configuration 60 Easy setup Cons 9 Tied to single machine 5 Still very volatile, changing syntax often
Integrations
Jenkins Datadog Google Compute Engine Amazon EC2 DigitalOcean GitHub Docker Kubernetes Drone.io Apache Mesos	Docker

What are some alternatives to Rancher, Docker Compose?

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.

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

Docker Machine

Machine lets you create Docker hosts on your computer, on cloud providers, and inside your own data center. It creates servers, installs Docker on them, then configures the Docker client to talk to them.

Related Comparisons

Docker Compose vs Rancher: What are the differences?

On-Demand Infrastructure Orchestration: Docker Compose is a tool that allows users to define and manage multi-container Docker applications. It is mainly focused on local development and deployment of Docker containers on a single host. On the other hand, Rancher is a complete container management platform that provides on-demand infrastructure orchestration capabilities. It allows users to manage and deploy containers across multiple hosts, either on-premises or in the cloud.
Multi-Host Container Orchestration: Docker Compose is designed to work with a single host, meaning it cannot manage containers on multiple machines. Rancher, on the other hand, has built-in support for multi-host container orchestration. It uses the native orchestration tools like Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, and Mesos to deploy and manage containers across a cluster of hosts.
Service Discovery and Load Balancing: Docker Compose relies on Docker's internal DNS service for service discovery and provides basic load balancing capabilities. Rancher, on the other hand, provides advanced service discovery and load balancing features. It automatically detects and manages container services, assigns them DNS names, and distributes incoming traffic across the containers using built-in load balancers.
Health Checks and Auto Recovery: While Docker Compose allows users to specify health check parameters for containers, it does not have built-in auto-recovery capabilities. Rancher, on the other hand, provides advanced health checking mechanisms and can automatically restart failed containers or reschedule them on healthy hosts.
Centralized Management and Monitoring: Docker Compose does not provide centralized management and monitoring capabilities. Rancher, on the other hand, provides a centralized management interface where users can monitor and manage the entire container infrastructure. It also includes features like logging, metrics, and alerts for comprehensive container monitoring.
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Docker Compose does not have native RBAC capabilities. Rancher, however, includes RBAC functionality that allows administrators to define roles and permissions for users and teams. This ensures that only authorized users have access to specific resources and actions in the container infrastructure.

Docker Compose vs Rancher

Overview