Kubernetes vs Docker

1. What is Docker?

Docker is an open-source lightweight containerization technology. It has gained widespread popularity in the cloud and application packaging world. It allows you to automate the deployment of applications in lightweight and portable containers.

It is computer software used for Virtualization. It also allows you to run multiple Operating systems on the same host. Virtualization in Docker is performed on the system-level in what is popularly called Docker containers.

1.1 Docker VS VM

As we can see on the above comparison, VM contains two more layers: GuestOS and Hypervisor, which will occupy more resource to deploy services.

1.2 Features of Docker

Google Trends Kubernetes vs Docker

Here are the essential features of Docker:

• Isolated environments for managing your applications
• Easy Modeling
• Version control
• Placement/Affinity
• Application Agility
• Developer Productivity
• Operational Efficiencies

2. What is Kubernetes?

Kubernetes is an open-source container management software developed in the Google platform. It helps you to manage a containerized application in various types of physical, virtual, and cloud environments.

It is a highly flexible container tool to deliver even complex applications. Applications 'run on clusters of hundreds to thousands of individual servers." It also allows you to manage your containerized application more efficiently.

2.1 Features of Kubernetes

Here are the essential features of Kubernetes:

• Offers automated scheduling
• Self-Healing capabilities
• Automated rollouts & rollback
• Horizontal Scaling & Load Balancing
• Provides a higher density of resource utilization
• Offers enterprise-ready features
• Application-centric management
• Auto-scalable infrastructure
• You can create predictable infrastructure
• Provides declarative configuration
• Deploy and update software at scale
• Offers environment consistency for development, testing, and production

2.2 Kubernetes architecture and components

Kubernetes is made up many components that do not know are care about each other. The components all talk to each other through the API server. Each of these components operates its own function and then exposes metrics, that we can collect for monitoring later on. We can break down the components into three main parts.

1. The Control Plane - The Master.
2. Nodes - Where pods get scheduled.
3. Pods - Holds containers.

2.3 The Control Plane - The Master Node

The control plane is the orchestrator. Kubernetes is an orchestration platform, and the control plane facilitates that orchestration. There are multiple components in the control plane that help facilitate that orchestration. Etcd for storage, the API server for communication between components, the scheduler which decides which nodes pods should run on, and the controller manager, responsible for checking the current state against the desired state. 

2.4 Nodes

Nodes make up the collective compute power of the Kubernetes cluster. This is where containers actually get deployed to run. Nodes are the physical infrastructure that your application runs on, the server of VMs in your environment. 

2.5 Pods

Pods are the lowest level resource in the Kubernetes cluster. A pod is made up of one or more containers, but most commonly just a single container. When defining your cluster, limits are set for pods which define what resources, CPU and memory, they need to run. The scheduler uses this definition to decide on which nodes to place the pods. If there is more than one container in a pod, it is difficult to estimate the required resources and the scheduler will not be able to appropriately place pods. 

3. Connections Between Kubernetes and Docker

3.1 How Does Kubernetes Relate to Docker?

Kubernetes and Docker are both comprehensive de-facto solutions to intelligently manage containerized applications and provide powerful capabilities, and from this some confusion has emerged. “Kubernetes” is now sometimes used as a shorthand for an entire container environment based on Kubernetes. In reality, they are not directly comparable, have different roots, and solve for different things.

Docker is a platform and tool for building, distributing, and running Docker containers. It offers its own native clustering tool that can be used to orchestrate and schedule containers on machine clusters. Kubernetes is a container orchestration system for Docker containers that is more extensive than Docker Swarm and is meant to coordinate clusters of nodes at scale in production in an efficient manner. It works around the concept of pods, which are scheduling units (and can contain one or more containers) in the Kubernetes ecosystem, and they are distributed among nodes to provide high availability. One can easily run a Docker build on a Kubernetes cluster, but Kubernetes itself is not a complete solution and is meant to include custom plugins.

Kubernetes and Docker are both fundamentally different technologies but they work very well together, and both facilitate the management and deployment of containers in a distributed architecture.

3.2 Can you use Docker without Kubernetes?

Docker is commonly used without Kubernetes, in fact this is the norm. While Kubernetes offers many benefits, it is notoriously complex and there are many scenarios where the overhead of spinning up Kubernetes is unnecessary or unwanted. 

In development environments it is common to use Docker without a container orchestrator like Kubernetes. In production environments often the benefits of using a container orchestrator do not outweigh the cost of added complexity. Additionally, many public cloud services like AWS, GCP, and Azure provide some orchestration capabilities making the tradeoff of the added complexity unnecessary. 

3.3 Can you use Kubernetes without Docker?

As Kubernetes is a container orchestrator, it needs a container runtime in order to orchestrate. Kubernetes is most commonly used with Docker, but it can also be used with any container runtime. RunC, cri-o, containerd are other container runtimes that you can deploy with Kubernetes.  The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) maintains a listing of endorsed container runtimes on their ecosystem landscape page and Kubernetes documentation provides specific instructions for getting set up using ContainerD and CRI-O. 

3.4 Kubernetes vs. Docker Swarm

Parameters	Docker Swarm	Kubernetes
Developed by	Docker Inc	Google
Year Released	2013	2014
Scaling	No Autoscaling	Auto-scaling
Cluster Setup	Setting up the cluster is challenging & complicated. Cluster Strength is stronger.	Setting up the cluster is simple. Requires only two commands. Cluster Strength not as strong
Installation	Easy & fast	Complicated & time-consuming.
Data volume	Shares storage volumes between multiple containers in the same Pod.	Shares storage volumes with any other container
Support for logging and monitoring tool	Allows you to use a 3rd party tool like ELK.	It offers an in-built tool for logging and monitoring.
Load balancing	Does auto load-balancing	Manually configure your load balancing settings
Scalability	Scaling up is faster than K8S. But, it's cluster strength is not as robust.	Scaling up is slow compared to docker. However, guarantees stronger cluster state Load balancing needs manual service configuration.
Updates	Agent update can be performed in place.	A cluster can be upgraded in place.
Optimized For	Optimized for a single large cluster	Optimized for multiple smaller clusters of SDLC
Tolerance ratio	High fault tolerance	Low fault tolerance
Node Support	Supports 2000 > nodes	Supports up to 5000 nodes
Container Limit	Limited to 95000 container	Limited to 300000 containers
Public cloud service provider	Azure only.	Google, Azure, and AWS.
Slave	Worker	Nodes
Compatibility	Less extensive and customizable	More comprehensive and highly customizable
Community	An active user base which regularly updates the software.	Offers strong support from open source communities and big companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM
Large clusters	Speed is considered for the strong cluster states.	Offers container deployment and scaling, even in large clusters without considering the speed.
Companies using	Spotify, Pinterest, eBay, Twitter, etc.	9GAG, Intuit, Buffer, Evernote, etc.
Github starts	53.8 k	54.1 k
Github forks	15.5 k	18.7 k

3.5 Advantages of Kubernetes

Here, are pros/ benefits of using Kubernetes.

• Easy organization of service with pods
• It is developed by Google, who bring years of valuable industry experience to the table
• Largest community among container orchestration tools.
• Offers a variety of storage options, including on-premises SANs and public clouds.
• Adheres to the principals of immutable infrastructure

3.6 Advantages of Docker

Here, are significant cons/ benefits of using Docker container:

• Offers an efficient and easier initial set up
• Integrates and works with existing Docker tools
• Allows you to describe your application lifecycle in detail
• Docker allows the user to track their container versions with ease to examine discrepancies between prior versions.
• Simples configuration, interact with Docker Compose.
• Docker offers a quick-paced environment that boots up a virtual machine and lets an app run in a virtual environment quickly.
• Documentation provides every bit of information.
• Provides simple and fast configuration to boost your business
• Ensures that application is isolated

3.7 Disadvantages of Kubernetes

Here, are cons/ drawbacks of using Kubernetes container:

• Migrating to stateless requires many efforts
• Limited functionality according to the availability in the Docker API.
• Highly complex Installation/configuration process
• Not compatible existing Docker CLI and Compose tools
• Complicated manual cluster deployment and automatic horizontal scaling set up

3. 8 Disadvantages of Docker

Here, are important cons/drawbacks of Docker container:

• Doesn't provide a storage option
• Offer a poor monitoring option.
• No automatic rescheduling of inactive Nodes
• Complicated automatic horizontal scaling set up
• All the actions have to be performed in CLI.
• Basic infrastructure handling
• Manual handling multiple instances
• Need support for other tools for production aspects - monitoring, healing, scaling
• Complicated manual cluster deployment
• No support of health-checks
• Docker is for-profit SaaS company. Many critical compoenents like Docker Engine, Docker Desktop are not ope-source.

4. Summary:

• Kubernetes is an open-source container management software developed in the Google platform.
• Docker is an open-source lightweight containerization technology.
• Kubernetes offers a feature of automated scheduling.
• Docker offers an isolated environment for managing your applications.
• Docker Swarm is developed by Docker Inc whereas Kubernetes is developed by Google.
• Kubernetes offers the Largest community among container orchestration tools.
• Docker offers an efficient and easier initial set up.
• The biggest drawback of Kubernetes is that it has a highly complex Installation/configuration process.
• The biggest drawback of Docker is that it doesn't provide any storage option.