Kubernetes vs rkt

Overview

Kubernetes

Stacks61.2K

Followers52.8K

Votes685

rkt

Stacks29

Followers112

Votes10

Kubernetes vs rkt: What are the differences?

<Write Introduction here>

1. **Container Orchestration Framework**: One key difference between Kubernetes and rkt is that Kubernetes is a comprehensive container orchestration system, offering a wide range of features and functionalities for managing containerized applications at scale. On the other hand, rkt is a simpler and lighter-weight container runtime that focuses on the core task of running containers efficiently without the full suite of orchestration capabilities provided by Kubernetes.

2. **Architecture and Design**: Kubernetes follows a master-slave architecture with a central control plane (master) that manages worker nodes (slaves) where containers are deployed. It uses a declarative approach for defining and managing the desired state of applications. In contrast, rkt is designed with a decentralized architecture where each container instance runs independently without the need for a central orchestrator. This minimalist design allows rkt to provide better security and isolation for container workloads.

3. **Community and Ecosystem**: Kubernetes has a larger and more active community backing it, with a vast ecosystem of third-party tools, plugins, and resources to extend its functionality and address various use cases. rkt, while still supported and maintained, has a smaller community and ecosystem compared to Kubernetes. This difference in community size can impact the availability of support, updates, and integrations for each platform.

4. **Networking and Storage Support**: Kubernetes provides built-in support for various networking and storage plugins, allowing users to configure networking and storage solutions based on their requirements. In contrast, rkt offers a more minimalistic approach to networking and storage, focusing on simplicity and efficiency rather than extensive plugin support. This difference can be crucial depending on specific use cases that rely heavily on networking or storage configurations.

5. **Security and Isolation Mechanisms**: Kubernetes comes with built-in security features such as role-based access control (RBAC), network policies, and pod security policies to help secure container workloads. Additionally, Kubernetes has features like namespaces and resource quotas for workload isolation and resource management. rkt emphasizes security by design, leveraging technologies like SELinux and AppArmor for enhanced container isolation and protection. This security-focused approach sets rkt apart in terms of container security compared to Kubernetes.

6. **Runtime Environment and Compatibility**: Kubernetes supports various container runtimes, including Docker, containerd, and CRI-O, offering flexibility in choosing the runtime environment for running containers. On the other hand, rkt uses its own runtime engine, known as rktlet, which is specifically designed for running rkt containers. This differences in runtime environments can impact the performance, compatibility, and management of container workloads in each platform.

In Summary, Kubernetes provides a robust container orchestration platform with extensive features and a large community, while rkt offers a lightweight container runtime with a focus on simplicity, security, and efficiency.

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Advice on Kubernetes, rkt

Simon

Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH

Apr 27, 2020

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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	rkt
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.	Rocket is a cli for running App Containers. The goal of rocket is to be composable, secure, and fast.
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	Composable. All tools for downloading, installing, and running containers should be well integrated, but independent and composable.;Security. Isolation should be pluggable, and the crypto primitives for strong trust, image auditing and application identity should exist from day one.;Image distribution. Discovery of container images should be simple and facilitate a federated namespace, and distributed retrieval. This opens the possibility of alternative protocols, such as BitTorrent, and deployments to private environments without the requirement of a registry.;Open. The format and runtime should be well-specified and developed by a community. We want independent implementations of tools to be able to run the same container consistently.
Statistics
Stacks 61.2K	Stacks 29
Followers 52.8K	Followers 112
Votes 685	Votes 10
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	Pros 5 Security 3 Robust container portability 2 Composable containers
Integrations
Vagrant Docker Rackspace Cloud Servers Microsoft Azure Google Compute Engine Ansible Google Kubernetes Engine	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Kubernetes, rkt?

Docker

The Docker Platform is the industry-leading container platform for continuous, high-velocity innovation, enabling organizations to seamlessly build and share any application — from legacy to what comes next — and securely run them anywhere

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.

LXD

LXD isn't a rewrite of LXC, in fact it's building on top of LXC to provide a new, better user experience. Under the hood, LXD uses LXC through liblxc and its Go binding to create and manage the containers. It's basically an alternative to LXC's tools and distribution template system with the added features that come from being controllable over the network.

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.

LXC

LXC is a userspace interface for the Linux kernel containment features. Through a powerful API and simple tools, it lets Linux users easily create and manage system or application containers.

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

Kubernetes vs rkt: What are the differences?

<Write Introduction here>

1. **Container Orchestration Framework**: One key difference between Kubernetes and rkt is that Kubernetes is a comprehensive container orchestration system, offering a wide range of features and functionalities for managing containerized applications at scale. On the other hand, rkt is a simpler and lighter-weight container runtime that focuses on the core task of running containers efficiently without the full suite of orchestration capabilities provided by Kubernetes.

2. **Architecture and Design**: Kubernetes follows a master-slave architecture with a central control plane (master) that manages worker nodes (slaves) where containers are deployed. It uses a declarative approach for defining and managing the desired state of applications. In contrast, rkt is designed with a decentralized architecture where each container instance runs independently without the need for a central orchestrator. This minimalist design allows rkt to provide better security and isolation for container workloads.

3. **Community and Ecosystem**: Kubernetes has a larger and more active community backing it, with a vast ecosystem of third-party tools, plugins, and resources to extend its functionality and address various use cases. rkt, while still supported and maintained, has a smaller community and ecosystem compared to Kubernetes. This difference in community size can impact the availability of support, updates, and integrations for each platform.

4. **Networking and Storage Support**: Kubernetes provides built-in support for various networking and storage plugins, allowing users to configure networking and storage solutions based on their requirements. In contrast, rkt offers a more minimalistic approach to networking and storage, focusing on simplicity and efficiency rather than extensive plugin support. This difference can be crucial depending on specific use cases that rely heavily on networking or storage configurations.

5. **Security and Isolation Mechanisms**: Kubernetes comes with built-in security features such as role-based access control (RBAC), network policies, and pod security policies to help secure container workloads. Additionally, Kubernetes has features like namespaces and resource quotas for workload isolation and resource management. rkt emphasizes security by design, leveraging technologies like SELinux and AppArmor for enhanced container isolation and protection. This security-focused approach sets rkt apart in terms of container security compared to Kubernetes.

6. **Runtime Environment and Compatibility**: Kubernetes supports various container runtimes, including Docker, containerd, and CRI-O, offering flexibility in choosing the runtime environment for running containers. On the other hand, rkt uses its own runtime engine, known as rktlet, which is specifically designed for running rkt containers. This differences in runtime environments can impact the performance, compatibility, and management of container workloads in each platform.

In Summary, Kubernetes provides a robust container orchestration platform with extensive features and a large community, while rkt offers a lightweight container runtime with a focus on simplicity, security, and efficiency.

Kubernetes vs rkt

Overview

Kubernetes vs rkt: What are the differences?

Share your Stack

Advice on Kubernetes, rkt

Detailed Comparison

What are some alternatives to Kubernetes, rkt?

Docker

Rancher

Docker Compose

Docker Swarm

Tutum

Portainer

LXD

Codefresh

LXC

CAST.AI

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Kubernetes vs rkt

Overview

Kubernetes vs rkt: What are the differences?

Share your Stack

Advice on Kubernetes, rkt

Detailed Comparison

What are some alternatives to Kubernetes, rkt?

Docker

Rancher

Docker Compose

Docker Swarm

Tutum

Portainer

LXD

Codefresh

LXC

CAST.AI

Related Comparisons

Bitbucket vs GitHub vs GitLab

AWS CodeCommit vs Bitbucket vs GitHub

Docker Swarm vs Kubernetes vs Rancher

Grunt vs Webpack vs gulp

Grafana vs Graphite vs Kibana