Helm vs Rancher Fleet

Overview

Helm

Stacks1.4K

Followers911

Votes18

Rancher Fleet

Stacks13

Followers72

Votes4

GitHub Stars1.6K

Forks248

Helm vs Rancher Fleet: What are the differences?

# Introduction

Key differences between Helm and Rancher Fleet are outlined below:

1. **Installation and Deployment**: Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes applications, facilitating the installation, upgrading, and management of software. On the other hand, Rancher Fleet is a GitOps-based tool that helps to manage configurations and deploy applications across multiple clusters. While Helm is focused on package management, Rancher Fleet emphasizes automated configuration management and deployment.

2. **Multi-Cluster Management**: Rancher Fleet is specifically designed for managing fleets of Kubernetes clusters, providing a centralized approach to configuration and deployment. In contrast, Helm is more tailored towards the deployment and management of applications within individual clusters. Rancher Fleet offers a more holistic solution for managing multiple clusters efficiently.

3. **GitOps Approach**: Rancher Fleet is built on the GitOps methodology, which involves using Git as the source of truth for declarative infrastructure and application configurations. This allows for version control, auditability, and reproducibility of the entire system. Helm, while capable of leveraging Git repositories for chart storage, does not inherently adhere to the GitOps workflow like Rancher Fleet.

4. **Control Plane Architecture**: Helm relies on Tiller, a server-side component, to manage the installation and deployment of charts in a Kubernetes cluster. However, Tiller has been deprecated due to security concerns. Rancher Fleet, on the other hand, employs a controller-based architecture that does not require an additional server-side component like Tiller. This architecture simplifies management and enhances security.

5. **Chart Packaging**: Helm packages applications into charts, which are essentially Kubernetes manifests combined with templates and values. These charts make it easy to manage and deploy complex applications. In comparison, Rancher Fleet utilizes Kubernetes custom resources, such as GitRepository and HelmRelease, to define and deploy applications. This approach offers more flexibility and control over the deployment process.

6. **Community Support and Integration**: Helm has a robust community and extensive library of charts, making it easier to find and share preconfigured applications. Rancher Fleet, while gaining popularity, may have a smaller community in comparison. Additionally, Helm integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines and other Kubernetes tools, offering a well-supported ecosystem for application deployment.

In Summary, Helm and Rancher Fleet differ in terms of their focus on package management vs. configuration management, multi-cluster capabilities, GitOps approach, control plane architecture, deployment mechanisms, and community support.

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Detailed Comparison

Helm	Rancher Fleet
Helm is the best way to find, share, and use software built for Kubernetes.	It is a Kubernetes cluster fleet controller specifically designed to address the challenges of running thousands to millions of clusters across the world. While it's designed for massive scale the concepts still apply for even small deployments of less than 10 clusters. It is lightweight enough to run on the smallest of deployments too and even has merit in a single node cluster managing only itself.
-	Kubernetes cluster fleet controller; Designed for massive scale; Lightweight; Ensure that deployments are consistents across clusters
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 1.6K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 248
Stacks 1.4K	Stacks 13
Followers 911	Followers 72
Votes 18	Votes 4
Pros & Cons
Pros 8 Infrastructure as code 6 Open source 2 Easy setup 1 Testability and reproducibility 1 Support	Pros 2 UI Integration 1 Enterprise support 1 Scalability
Integrations
Docker Kubernetes	Kubernetes

What are some alternatives to Helm, Rancher Fleet?

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

Helm vs Rancher Fleet: What are the differences?

# Introduction

Key differences between Helm and Rancher Fleet are outlined below:

1. **Installation and Deployment**: Helm is a package manager for Kubernetes applications, facilitating the installation, upgrading, and management of software. On the other hand, Rancher Fleet is a GitOps-based tool that helps to manage configurations and deploy applications across multiple clusters. While Helm is focused on package management, Rancher Fleet emphasizes automated configuration management and deployment.

2. **Multi-Cluster Management**: Rancher Fleet is specifically designed for managing fleets of Kubernetes clusters, providing a centralized approach to configuration and deployment. In contrast, Helm is more tailored towards the deployment and management of applications within individual clusters. Rancher Fleet offers a more holistic solution for managing multiple clusters efficiently.

3. **GitOps Approach**: Rancher Fleet is built on the GitOps methodology, which involves using Git as the source of truth for declarative infrastructure and application configurations. This allows for version control, auditability, and reproducibility of the entire system. Helm, while capable of leveraging Git repositories for chart storage, does not inherently adhere to the GitOps workflow like Rancher Fleet.

4. **Control Plane Architecture**: Helm relies on Tiller, a server-side component, to manage the installation and deployment of charts in a Kubernetes cluster. However, Tiller has been deprecated due to security concerns. Rancher Fleet, on the other hand, employs a controller-based architecture that does not require an additional server-side component like Tiller. This architecture simplifies management and enhances security.

5. **Chart Packaging**: Helm packages applications into charts, which are essentially Kubernetes manifests combined with templates and values. These charts make it easy to manage and deploy complex applications. In comparison, Rancher Fleet utilizes Kubernetes custom resources, such as GitRepository and HelmRelease, to define and deploy applications. This approach offers more flexibility and control over the deployment process.

6. **Community Support and Integration**: Helm has a robust community and extensive library of charts, making it easier to find and share preconfigured applications. Rancher Fleet, while gaining popularity, may have a smaller community in comparison. Additionally, Helm integrates seamlessly with CI/CD pipelines and other Kubernetes tools, offering a well-supported ecosystem for application deployment.

Helm vs Rancher Fleet

Overview