Selfhosted @lemmy.world bananess @lemmy.world 1y ago

Deciding between Kubernetes or Docker Swarm

Hi all!

I have a couple of months to create and deploy a small cluster for running docker containers.

The cluster will consist of 3 master nodes and some workers. When it is ready, it will consist of about 15 servers.

I have little experience with Docker (managing some containers on my home server), I have spent the last 4 or 5 weeks studying and testing with Kubernetes and I think it's a little overkill for what it's going to take. You run the risk of adding unnecessary complexity.

I am seeing that instead Docker Swarm seems easier to set up and manage.

To consider that I will be on my own to manage it.

What do you think?

Thanks!

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23 comments

I haven't used Docker Swarm (I have barely used Docker Compose), but I have run a couple on-prem Kubernetes clusters (at my house and for clients at my day job) and cloud Kubernetes clusters, so I can speak to how complex it is it set up and run.

My background is systems administration, engineering, IT, and now DevOps. I've been using Linux since Ubuntu 6.06.

I set up my Kubernetes cluster with kubeadm because I wanted to learn, and it took me about a weekend to get my single master, two worker cluster up and running. I think you could probably do this using k3s much faster and have less learning curve (you don't have to care as much about Container Network Interfaces, for example, because k3s makes that decision for you.)

There is a lot of documentation out there on Kubernetes. Helm as a "package manager" (really a templating engine) can be nice if the software you want to deploy has a Helm chart that is well written. Writing your own Helm charts can be a learning process, I've modified some but not written one from scratch yet.

Kubernetes releases new versions about quarterly. I've done several upgrades on my primary home cluster over the course of the past 2 years and they've been pretty smooth, about an hour of time investment ~~total~~ each. And remember, I'm on the more nerdy and complex flavor of Kubernetes. I think with k3s these would be even smoother and quicker.

I feel like Kubernetes knowledge is probably more valuable out in the industry if that's a factor for you. I haven't come across any Docker Swarm clusters in my DevOps travels, just Kubernetes and some HashiCorp Nomad.

I'm curious to see what folks say about Docker Swarm. If you have any questions about Kubernetes or running your workload on it, I'd be happy to try to help!
- I agree with this. I think single node or not the industry is moving towards Kubernetes for container orchestration. Docker has showed their evil intentions and it’s time to leave them in the past. Even podman has native kubernetes manifest support (albeit limited last i checked) as @[email protected] pointed out there’s good avenues to take if you want to avoid the complexities of kubernetes like k3s.
  
  Is k3s good for production?
  
  We're using it in production at my day job in a couple of places.
  
  How is it about the reverse proxy like traefik? Are you using nginx ingress with k3s?
  
  Sorry for the many questions! Thanks!
  
  Yep, using ingress-nginx on k3s as well.
  
  I'm more of a Kubernetes the Hard way kind of person, but I think it can be suitable for certain production workloads. I'd trust a production workload on it way more then Docker Swarm
  
  I honestly hate that I can't just deploy docker compose files directly to kubernetes seamlessly, and instead have to translate them to manifests. I'd say that having to drop all of that existing configuration as well as not being able to easily copy docker-compose's for random new software I find is the biggest blocker for me being able to actually commit to using kubernetes.
- Thanks for the reply!
  
  I also have a background as Linux Sysadmin but barely a couple of years.
  
  I have managed to get a Kubernets cluster up and running but I have difficult setting up containers. The Classic "whoami" works flawless by Traefik for example, but doing the same for Portainer seems like impossibile for me right now, going crazy :D
  
  I'm i choosing a difficult path? Is it possibile to have a good K8s cluster running nice without traefik?
  
  Thanks!
  
  I use ingress-ngnix for all my ingress controllers, I've only messed with Traefik a bit in Kubernetes and it felt like it was fighting me the whole time.
  
  Nice to know that I'm not the only one having this experience
- K8s all the way. That's the general consensus in the industry. Swarm is not popular in comparison. My company sells a product in two flavors, SaaS and On Prem. Both run on K8s. We supply Helm charts and whatnot for On Prem installations (including in private cloud). There is good demand for K8s skill in the labor market.

23 comments