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Kubernetes

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Kubernetes vs Kustomize: What are the differences?

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.

What is Kustomize? Kubernetes native configuration management. It introduces a template-free way to customize application configuration that simplifies the use of off-the-shelf applications. Now, built into kubectl as apply -k.

Kubernetes and Kustomize can be primarily classified as "Container" tools.

Some of the features offered by Kubernetes are:

  • 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

On the other hand, Kustomize provides the following key features:

  • Purely declarative approach to configuration customization
  • Natively built into kubectl
  • Manage an arbitrary number of distinctly customized Kubernetes configurations

Kubernetes is an open source tool with 68.3K GitHub stars and 24.6K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Kubernetes's open source repository on GitHub.

Decisions about Kubernetes and Kustomize
Simon Reymann
Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH · | 30 upvotes · 10.5M views

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.
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Pros of Kubernetes
Pros of Kustomize
  • 166
    Leading docker container management solution
  • 129
    Simple and powerful
  • 107
    Open source
  • 76
    Backed by google
  • 58
    The right abstractions
  • 25
    Scale services
  • 20
    Replication controller
  • 11
    Permission managment
  • 9
    Supports autoscaling
  • 8
    Simple
  • 8
    Cheap
  • 6
    Self-healing
  • 5
    Open, powerful, stable
  • 5
    Reliable
  • 5
    No cloud platform lock-in
  • 5
    Promotes modern/good infrascture practice
  • 4
    Scalable
  • 4
    Quick cloud setup
  • 3
    Custom and extensibility
  • 3
    Captain of Container Ship
  • 3
    Cloud Agnostic
  • 3
    Backed by Red Hat
  • 3
    Runs on azure
  • 3
    A self healing environment with rich metadata
  • 2
    Everything of CaaS
  • 2
    Gke
  • 2
    Golang
  • 2
    Easy setup
  • 2
    Expandable
  • 2
    Sfg
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    Cons of Kubernetes
    Cons of Kustomize
    • 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
    • 1
      Additional vendor lock-in (Docker)
    • 1
      More moving parts to secure
    • 1
      Additional Technology Overhead
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      - No public GitHub repository available -

      What is 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.

      What is Kustomize?

      It introduces a template-free way to customize application configuration that simplifies the use of off-the-shelf applications. Now, built into kubectl as apply -k.

      Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

      What companies use Kubernetes?
      What companies use Kustomize?
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      What tools integrate with Kubernetes?
      What tools integrate with Kustomize?

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      What are some alternatives to Kubernetes and Kustomize?
      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.
      Nomad
      Nomad is a cluster manager, designed for both long lived services and short lived batch processing workloads. Developers use a declarative job specification to submit work, and Nomad ensures constraints are satisfied and resource utilization is optimized by efficient task packing. Nomad supports all major operating systems and virtualized, containerized, or standalone applications.
      OpenStack
      OpenStack is a cloud operating system that controls large pools of compute, storage, and networking resources throughout a datacenter, all managed through a dashboard that gives administrators control while empowering their users to provision resources through a web interface.
      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.
      See all alternatives