I won't comment on Kubernetes because I'm not qualified to do so. Compose: Multi-container orchestration. You define an application stack via a compose file in

I won't comment on Kubernetes because I'm not qualified to do so. Compose: Multi-container orchestration. You define an application stack via a compose file including links between containers (web front end links to a database). When you run docker compose up on that file, compose stands up the containers in the right order to deal with dependencies. Swarm: Represents a cluster of Docker Hosts as a single entity. Will orchestrate the placement of containers on the hosts based on different criteria and constraints. You interact with the swarm the same way you would any single docker host. You can plug in different discovery services (Consul, Etcd, Zookeeper) as well as different schedulers (Mesos, K8s, etc). Tutum: SaaS-based graphical front end for Docker Machine, Swarm, and Compose (although it's Stackfiles not Compose files w/ Tutum). The stuff described above is handled via Web GUI You didn't ask but Machine is automated provisioning of Docker hosts across different platforms (AWS, GCE, Digital Ocean, vSphere, Fusion, etc).