Docker Compose vs Rancher: What are the differences?

1. On-Demand Infrastructure Orchestration: Docker Compose is a tool that allows users to define and manage multi-container Docker applications. It is mainly focused on local development and deployment of Docker containers on a single host. On the other hand, Rancher is a complete container management platform that provides on-demand infrastructure orchestration capabilities. It allows users to manage and deploy containers across multiple hosts, either on-premises or in the cloud.
2. Multi-Host Container Orchestration: Docker Compose is designed to work with a single host, meaning it cannot manage containers on multiple machines. Rancher, on the other hand, has built-in support for multi-host container orchestration. It uses the native orchestration tools like Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, and Mesos to deploy and manage containers across a cluster of hosts.
3. Service Discovery and Load Balancing: Docker Compose relies on Docker's internal DNS service for service discovery and provides basic load balancing capabilities. Rancher, on the other hand, provides advanced service discovery and load balancing features. It automatically detects and manages container services, assigns them DNS names, and distributes incoming traffic across the containers using built-in load balancers.
4. Health Checks and Auto Recovery: While Docker Compose allows users to specify health check parameters for containers, it does not have built-in auto-recovery capabilities. Rancher, on the other hand, provides advanced health checking mechanisms and can automatically restart failed containers or reschedule them on healthy hosts.
5. Centralized Management and Monitoring: Docker Compose does not provide centralized management and monitoring capabilities. Rancher, on the other hand, provides a centralized management interface where users can monitor and manage the entire container infrastructure. It also includes features like logging, metrics, and alerts for comprehensive container monitoring.
6. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Docker Compose does not have native RBAC capabilities. Rancher, however, includes RBAC functionality that allows administrators to define roles and permissions for users and teams. This ensures that only authorized users have access to specific resources and actions in the container infrastructure.

In Summary, Docker Compose is focused on local development and deployment of containers on a single host, while Rancher provides on-demand orchestration, multi-host support, advanced service discovery, health checks, centralized management, and RBAC capabilities for managing containers across multiple hosts.