Overview

etcd

Stacks308

Followers412

Votes24

Docker Swarm

Stacks796

Followers990

Votes282

Docker Swarm vs etcd: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Docker Swarm and etcd

Docker Swarm is a container orchestration tool that allows users to manage and control a cluster of Docker nodes, while etcd is a distributed key-value store that provides a reliable and highly-available storage solution for distributed systems.

Architecture: Docker Swarm uses a master-worker architecture, where the master node manages the swarm cluster and worker nodes execute tasks. On the other hand, etcd uses a peer-to-peer architecture, where all nodes are peers and cooperate to maintain consistency.
Purpose: Docker Swarm primarily focuses on providing a container orchestration platform, allowing users to deploy and manage applications in a swarm cluster. In contrast, etcd is designed to be a distributed key-value store, preserving data across failures and providing a reliable storage solution for applications.
Data Consistency: Docker Swarm does not prioritize strong data consistency but rather ensures availability and partition tolerance. In contrast, etcd follows the principles of the Raft consensus algorithm to achieve strong consistency, guaranteeing that all nodes see the same data at the same time.
Leadership Election: In Docker Swarm, leadership election is based on the underlying raft consensus algorithm. If the leader node fails, a new leader is elected. In etcd, leadership election follows the Raft algorithm as well, but additional mechanisms such as lease-based revocation and leader demotion are employed to handle failures more effectively.
Fault Tolerance: Docker Swarm provides fault tolerance by supporting replication of containers across multiple worker nodes. If a worker node fails, the containers are automatically rescheduled on other available nodes. Etcd achieves fault tolerance by replicating data across multiple etcd nodes, ensuring that the system is resilient to failures.
API and Functionality: Docker Swarm provides a comprehensive API and command-line interface (CLI) for managing containers, services, and the swarm cluster. Etcd, on the other hand, exposes a simple key-value API, allowing users to get, set, and delete data stored in the distributed key-value store.

In summary, Docker Swarm is primarily focused on container orchestration and provides a master-worker architecture, while etcd is a distributed key-value store that ensures strong data consistency and fault-tolerance using a peer-to-peer architecture.

Advice on etcd, Docker Swarm

Simon

Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH

Apr 27, 2020

Decidedon

GitHub

GitHub Pages

Markdown

Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:

GitHub (incl. GitHub Pages/Markdown for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
Respectively Git as revision control system
SourceTree as Git GUI
Visual Studio Code as IDE
CircleCI for continuous integration (automatize development process)
Prettier / TSLint / ESLint as code linter
SonarQube as quality gate
Docker as container management (incl. Docker Compose for multi-container application management)
VirtualBox for operating system simulation tests
Kubernetes as cluster management for docker containers
Heroku for deploying in test environments
nginx as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
SSLMate (using OpenSSL) for certificate management
Amazon EC2 (incl. Amazon S3) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
PostgreSQL as preferred database system
Redis 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

etcd	Docker Swarm
etcd is a distributed key value store that provides a reliable way to store data across a cluster of machines. It’s open-source and available on GitHub. etcd gracefully handles master elections during network partitions and will tolerate machine failure, including the master.	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.
Statistics
Stacks 308	Stacks 796
Followers 412	Followers 990
Votes 24	Votes 282
Pros & Cons
Pros 11 Service discovery 6 Fault tolerant key value store 2 Bundled with coreos 2 Secure 1 Open Source	Pros 55 Docker friendly 46 Easy to setup 40 Standard Docker API 38 Easy to use 23 Native Cons 9 Low adoption
Integrations
No integrations available	Docker

What are some alternatives to etcd, Docker Swarm?

Kubernetes

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.

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.

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.

Consul

Consul is a tool for service discovery and configuration. Consul is distributed, highly available, and extremely scalable.

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.

Eureka

Eureka is a REST (Representational State Transfer) based service that is primarily used in the AWS cloud for locating services for the purpose of load balancing and failover of middle-tier servers.

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.

Zookeeper

A centralized service for maintaining configuration information, naming, providing distributed synchronization, and providing group services. All of these kinds of services are used in some form or another by distributed applications.