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I would love to see a comparison between Docker Swarm and Kubernetes. From talking to peeps I've got that Kubernetes is better for a large number of nodes? I se

I would love to see a comparison between Docker Swarm and Kubernetes. From talking to peeps I've got that Kubernetes is better for a large number of nodes? I self host all my side projects with Docker Swarm and it's been so good I haven't needed to look into other container management solutions (but I've only got eight nodes).

piva00 8y ago
At the moment I'd say that Kubernetes is only worthy the effort if you have a bunch of idle capacity in your nodes and some tens of machines at least. The setup can get a bit complex quite early and won't be worth the effort to manage 8 nodes, when you begin to scale to around 20 nodes running a bunch of different workloads (batch jobs, web services, etc.), can avoid provisioning on the application side, etc., then k8s begins to shine more and pay back the investment.
- brianwawok 8y ago
  Why should node count matter? Two clicks to get 1-1000 nodes on GKE. The work is to learn the yaml syntax and the way to deploy to GKE... but most apps need to learn something about how it will be deployed (be it how to use ansible to deploy vs how to setup on k8s vs how to use serverless). But you need to do this for 1-1000 nodes, may as well just do it once...
raesene9 8y ago
I'd say that if you're on swarm and it's doing what you want, you probably want to stick with it. Kubernetes is more flexible and more powerful, but it's also a lot more complex. You either go with one of the managed distro's which take on some of that complexity but also reduce your flexibility, or you manage the whole thing yourself.
jakoblorz 8y ago
I believe this does a good job comparing without going to deep, e.g. for people just getting started on swarm/k8 https://platform9.com/blog/kubernetes-docker-swarm-compared/ https://platform9.com/blog/kubernetes-docker-swarm-compared/ Edit: updated url to a more recent version of the article

piva00 8y ago

At the moment I'd say that Kubernetes is only worthy the effort if you have a bunch of idle capacity in your nodes and some tens of machines at least. The setup can get a bit complex quite early and won't be worth the effort to manage 8 nodes, when you begin to scale to around 20 nodes running a bunch of different workloads (batch jobs, web services, etc.), can avoid provisioning on the application side, etc., then k8s begins to shine more and pay back the investment.

brianwawok 8y ago
Why should node count matter? Two clicks to get 1-1000 nodes on GKE. The work is to learn the yaml syntax and the way to deploy to GKE... but most apps need to learn something about how it will be deployed (be it how to use ansible to deploy vs how to setup on k8s vs how to use serverless). But you need to do this for 1-1000 nodes, may as well just do it once...

raesene9 8y ago

I'd say that if you're on swarm and it's doing what you want, you probably want to stick with it. Kubernetes is more flexible and more powerful, but it's also a lot more complex. You either go with one of the managed distro's which take on some of that complexity but also reduce your flexibility, or you manage the whole thing yourself.

jakoblorz 8y ago

I believe this does a good job comparing without going to deep, e.g. for people just getting started on swarm/k8 https://platform9.com/blog/kubernetes-docker-swarm-compared/ https://platform9.com/blog/kubernetes-docker-swarm-compared/ Edit: updated url to a more recent version of the article