The Docker command is used for working with one image. When working with multiple images, coordinating ports, volumes, environment variables, links, and other

The Docker command is used for working with one image. When working with multiple images, coordinating ports, volumes, environment variables, links, and other things gets very troublesome very quickly as you get into using a mish-mash of deployment and management scripts. Compose aims to solve this problem by declaratively defining ports, volumes, links, and other things. Compose does allow you to scale up and down easily but it doesn't do auto-scaling, load balancing, or automated crash recovery -- this is where Swarm comes in. Kubernetes does what both compose and swarm do, but in a single product. Both Swarm and Kubernetes are designed to accommodate provisioning of resources across multiple hosts and automatically deciding which containers go where. Compose, Swarm, and Kubernetes are all things you can install yourself. Tutum is far bigger and the scope of its usage falls well outside of what Kubernetes and the other's do, but suffice to say that it's more of a PaaS than anything else. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not very familiar with Swarm, Kubernetes, or Tutum.