Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
etcd vs Kubernetes: What are the differences?
What is etcd? A distributed consistent key-value store for shared configuration and service discovery. etcd is a distributed key value store that provides a reliable way to store data across a cluster of machines. It’s open-source and available on GitHub. etcd gracefully handles master elections during network partitions and will tolerate machine failure, including the master.
What is Kubernetes? Manage a cluster of Linux containers as a single system to accelerate Dev and simplify Ops. 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.
etcd belongs to "Open Source Service Discovery" category of the tech stack, while Kubernetes can be primarily classified under "Container Tools".
"Service discovery" is the top reason why over 7 developers like etcd, while over 131 developers mention "Leading docker container management solution" as the leading cause for choosing Kubernetes.
etcd and Kubernetes are both open source tools. Kubernetes with 54.2K GitHub stars and 18.8K forks on GitHub appears to be more popular than etcd with 25.5K GitHub stars and 5.18K GitHub forks.
Slack, Shopify, and Starbucks are some of the popular companies that use Kubernetes, whereas etcd is used by CNCFlora, Beam, and Giant Swarm. Kubernetes has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1018 company stacks & 1060 developers stacks; compared to etcd, which is listed in 27 company stacks and 11 developer stacks.
Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:
- GitHub (incl. GitHub Pages/Markdown for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
- Respectively Git as revision control system
- SourceTree as Git GUI
- Visual Studio Code as IDE
- CircleCI for continuous integration (automatize development process)
- Prettier / TSLint / ESLint as code linter
- SonarQube as quality gate
- Docker as container management (incl. Docker Compose for multi-container application management)
- VirtualBox for operating system simulation tests
- Kubernetes as cluster management for docker containers
- Heroku for deploying in test environments
- nginx as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
- SSLMate (using OpenSSL) for certificate management
- Amazon EC2 (incl. Amazon S3) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
- PostgreSQL as preferred database system
- Redis 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.
Pros of etcd
- Service discovery11
- Fault tolerant key value store6
- Secure2
- Bundled with coreos2
- Consol integration1
- Privilege Access Management1
- Open Source1
Pros of Kubernetes
- Leading docker container management solution166
- Simple and powerful129
- Open source107
- Backed by google76
- The right abstractions58
- Scale services25
- Replication controller20
- Permission managment11
- Supports autoscaling9
- Simple8
- Cheap8
- Self-healing6
- Open, powerful, stable5
- Reliable5
- No cloud platform lock-in5
- Promotes modern/good infrascture practice5
- Scalable4
- Quick cloud setup4
- Custom and extensibility3
- Captain of Container Ship3
- Cloud Agnostic3
- Backed by Red Hat3
- Runs on azure3
- A self healing environment with rich metadata3
- Everything of CaaS2
- Gke2
- Golang2
- Easy setup2
- Expandable2
- Sfg2
Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions
Cons of etcd
Cons of Kubernetes
- Steep learning curve16
- Poor workflow for development15
- Orchestrates only infrastructure8
- High resource requirements for on-prem clusters4
- Too heavy for simple systems2
- Additional vendor lock-in (Docker)1
- More moving parts to secure1
- Additional Technology Overhead1
Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions
What is etcd?
What is Kubernetes?
Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!
Sign up to get full access to all the companiesMake informed product decisions
What tools integrate with Kubernetes?
Sign up to get full access to all the tool integrationsMake informed product decisions
Blog Posts
+1
+2
+9
+11
+11+7
+12
+2