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by EtienneK 3419 days ago
I would also like to know the answer to this question. Every time I try setting up a Kubernetes cluster, it's an exercise in frustration. Docker Swarm is much easier in comparison.

Add to the fact that Docker Swarm is adding Enterprise features (such as Secrets in 1.13) and that is has an Enterprisey version (Docker Datacenter) which supports multiple teams, why would I - an Enterprise developer and architect - look at Kubernetes over Docker Swarm?

3 comments

My £0.02 is that Kubernetes has the backing of Google who have a tremendous amount of experience with container orchestration. And while using Kubernetes it really shows, things are pretty well thought out, lots of features out of the box etc.

With docker swarm it's taken them this long to get simple secrets integrated, and as with all of my experiences with first party docker tools: they seem ok at first, but the devil (and problems) are in the details.

I trust Google more to get this right, and I highly doubt Kubernetes is going anywhere.

Red Hat are doubling down on Kubernetes too (second biggest contributor to Kubernetes), and if there is anyone who is good at taking parts of an opensource eco system and supporting them for an enterprise, its Red Hat.
Because Kubernetes, even though it is still young, is a lot more mature then Docker Swarm.

Kubernetes is also based on years of running containers with Google itself, it solves real problems. Allowing containers to run in the same pod allows for much nicer composability than running multiprocess containers.

Have you tried setting up a k8s cluster recently, I believe they added kubeadm for much easier setup in 1.5, which was released a few weeks ago.

The other responses to your posts are great, but I'd like to add one thing to them;

Why are you equating low barrier of entry with quality? I think MongoDB ought to have taught everybody in this field that you can have a low barrier of entry and still be a crap product.

I didn't see any mention of quality in GP's post... For me Docker swarm is a simpler implementation than Kubernetes and likely more suitable for simpler deployments.

Kubernetes whilst a cool product still has a lot of rough edges even now. One I encountered recently was that to upgrade a locally deployed cluster from 1.4 to 1.5 the answer appears to be "re-install from scratch" as the upgrade script is still "experimental" (https://kubernetes.io/docs/admin/cluster-management/#upgradi...)