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Kubernetes vs Portainer: What are the differences?
What is Kubernetes? Manage a cluster of Linux containers as a single system to accelerate Dev and simplify Ops. 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.
What is Portainer? Simple management UI for Docker. Portainer is an open-source lightweight management UI which allows you to easily manage your Docker environments Portainer is available on Windows, Linux and Mac. It has never been so easy to manage Docker !.
Kubernetes and Portainer belong to "Container Tools" category of the tech stack.
Some of the features offered by Kubernetes are:
- Lightweight, simple and accessible
- Built for a multi-cloud world, public, private or hybrid
- Highly modular, designed so that all of its components are easily swappable
On the other hand, Portainer provides the following key features:
- Docker management
- Docker UI
- Docker cluster management
"Leading docker container management solution" is the primary reason why developers consider Kubernetes over the competitors, whereas "Simple" was stated as the key factor in picking Portainer.
Kubernetes is an open source tool with 54.2K GitHub stars and 18.8K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Kubernetes's open source repository on GitHub.
According to the StackShare community, Kubernetes has a broader approval, being mentioned in 1017 company stacks & 1060 developers stacks; compared to Portainer, which is listed in 23 company stacks and 17 developer stacks.
Hello, we have a bunch of local hosts (Linux and Windows) where Docker containers are running with bamboo agents on them. Currently, each container is installed as a system service. Each host is set up manually. I want to improve the system by adding some sort of orchestration software that should install, update and check for consistency in my docker containers. I don't need any clouds, all hosts are local. I'd prefer simple solutions. What orchestration system should I choose?
If you just want the basic orchestration between a set of defined hosts, go with Docker Swarm. If you want more advanced orchestration + flexibility in terms of resource management and load balancing go with Kubernetes. In both cases, you can make it even more complex while making the whole architecture more understandable and replicable by using Terraform.
We develop rapidly with docker-compose orchestrated services, however, for production - we utilise the very best ideas that Kubernetes has to offer: SCALE! We can scale when needed, setting a maximum and minimum level of nodes for each application layer - scaling only when the load balancer needs it. This allowed us to reduce our devops costs by 40% whilst also maintaining an SLA of 99.87%.
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.
Pros of Kubernetes
- Leading docker container management solution162
- Simple and powerful127
- Open source104
- Backed by google75
- The right abstractions57
- Scale services24
- Replication controller19
- Permission managment10
- Cheap7
- Simple7
- Supports autoscaling7
- No cloud platform lock-in4
- Self-healing4
- Reliable4
- Quick cloud setup3
- Open, powerful, stable3
- Scalable3
- Promotes modern/good infrascture practice3
- Custom and extensibility2
- Cloud Agnostic2
- Captain of Container Ship2
- A self healing environment with rich metadata2
- Runs on azure2
- Backed by Red Hat2
- Golang1
- Expandable1
- Sfg1
- Everything of CaaS1
- Easy setup1
- Gke1
Pros of Portainer
- Simple35
- Great UI26
- Friendly19
- Easy to setup, gives a practical interface for Docker12
- Because it just works, super simple yet powerful11
- Fully featured11
- A must for Docker DevOps9
- Free and opensource7
- It's simple, fast and the support is great5
- API5
- Template Support4
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Cons of Kubernetes
- Steep learning curve15
- Poor workflow for development15
- Orchestrates only infrastructure8
- High resource requirements for on-prem clusters4
- Too heavy for simple systems2
- Additional vendor lock-in (Docker)1
- More moving parts to secure1
- Additional Technology Overhead1
Cons of Portainer
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What is Kubernetes?
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