[_jal]

Lots of folks have explained it well in the normal terms used for it. Here's the comparison.

Compare it to init. Systemd is currently the dominant init for most Linux flavors. When your system starts and the kernel has done its thing, init takes over. It launches daemons, sets up networking, that sort of thing. After startup, it will relaunch things that crash, possibly do other things.

Kubernetes is sort of an init for an emerging pattern of cross-machine systems. Like systemd, it uses configuration to figure out what should run in what order, relaunches things that fail and manages networking (albeit in a very different context), that sort of thing.

There are huge differences because the problems are very different. But as a high level comparison, there are worse ones. (Especially if you're very charitable when interpreting "that sort of thing".)

[oblio]

I’m going to alter and copy this idea: “kubernetes is distributed init”. I’d say it’s also distributed cron and if you include the resource stuff, a distributed kernel :p

[moosingin3space]

Yeah, I think Kubernetes is more like a distributed OS than a distributed systemd.