[nonameiguess]

k3s is kubernetes. Simpler to install and get a cluster running and much smaller, but still kubernetes, with an identical feature set and API. That is part of the point of kubernetes, that it is a standard and anyone can implement it, with Google's original implementation only being a reference, not canonical.

Part of what something like k3s enables is this: https://www.acc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2557413/...

They don't mention that this was accomplished via k3s, but I happen to know it was because it was colleagues of mine that did this. The point of being able to do something like this is you can deploy a completely identical stack of admin/controller level software to systems running in data centers and systems running in airplanes. As long as they can run kubernetes, you're good to go, and with k3s, just about any piece of hardware can run kubernetes. This has huge implications for defense because it means you can develop and test software that isn't directly responsible for specialized hardware control without having to build emulators or lab equipment identical to what is installed in the actual weapons platforms. You just need to ensure they can both run kubernetes.

It doesn't have to be kubernetes, obviously, but you get the advantage of a fairly rich ecosystem that includes things like k3s, which doesn't even require bash or a shell at all to work.