Kubernetes Matrix Table
Kubernetes Distributions & Installers Matrix Table¶
| Kubernetes Installer or Distribution | Role | Ecosystem | Infra Provider | On-Premise | Licence | HA | Standalone | Runs in Docker | Ingress + Storage included |
Automated Deployment |
Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| kubeadm | SRE / DevOps | Kubernetes Upstream | Multi platform | Yes | OSS | Yes | No | No | No | No | Official kubernetes deployment tool |
| Ansible role for kubeadm automation | SRE / DevOps | Kubernetes Upstream | Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes (storage?) | No | Ansible role for kubeadm automation |
| Kops | SRE / DevOps | Kubernetes Upstream | AWS | No | OSS | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | AWS compliant, alpha release for other providers |
| kube-aws | SRE / DevOps | A command-line tool to declaratively manage Kubernetes clusters on AWS | |||||||||
| Minikube | Devel | Kubernetes Upstream | Dektop Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Official development environment |
| Docker Desktop on Windows | Devel | Kubernetes Upstream | Desktop Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Development environment available in Docker Desktop on Windows |
| Rancher 2 | SRE / DevOps | Multi-cloud kubernetes management |
Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | Yes | No | No | No | No | Racher is an enterprise kubernetes installer that competes with OpenShift. |
| Rancher 2 RKE | SRE / DevOps | Rancher | Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | Yes | no | no | Rancher 2 that runs in docker containers. |
| K3s | SRE / DevOps / IoT | Rancher | Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Basic kubernetes with automated installer. |
| K3d | SRE / DevOps / IoT | Rancher | Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | k3s that runs in docker containers. |
| K3sup (said ‘ketchup’) | SRE / DevOps / IoT | Rancher | Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | get from zero to KUBECONFIG with k3s on any local or remote VM |
| K3OS | SRE / DevOps / IoT | Rancher | Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Linux distribution designed to remove as much OS maintenance as possible in a Kubernetes cluster |
| K3c | Devel | Rancher | Linux | Yes | OSS | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Lightweight local container engine for container development (experiment) |
| Microk8s | Devel / IoT | Kubernetes Upstream | Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | Yes (beta) | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Ubuntu. It compites with k3s. |
| Pharos | SRE / DevOPs / IoT | Kubernetes Upstream | Multi Platform | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Pharos is a vendor neutral community driven Kubernetes that works on any infrastructure at any scale. It works flawlessly on public clouds, private clouds, hybrid clouds, on-premises, bare metal or at the edge, no problem! |
| OKD | SRE / DevOps | OpenShift | Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes (okd-community-install) |
Yes (okd-community-install) |
okd-community-install is a standalone cluster of 1 node valid for small projects. |
| Minishift | Devel | OpenShift | Desktop Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | OpenShift 3 official development environment. |
| OCP 4 CodeReady Containers | Devel | OpenShift | Desktop Virtual Machine | Yes | OSS | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | OpenShift 4 official development environment |
| OCP 4 Public Cloud | SRE / DevOps | OpenShift | AWS, GCP, Azure | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | OpenShift in Public Cloud |
| OpenShift Dedicated | SRE / DevOps | OpenShift | AWS | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | OpenShift In AWS managed by Red Hat |
| OCP 4 Private Cloud 1 | SRE / DevOps | OpenShift | OpenStack, Red Hat Virtualization |
Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | OpenShift in private cloud with automated deployment recommeded by Red Hat. |
| OCP 4 Private Cloud 2 | SRE / DevOps | OpenShift | vSphere 6.7 U2, Bare Metal | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | OpenShift in private cloud with infra providers that currently don’t support automated deployments. |
| AWS EKS | SRE / DevOps | AWS Kubernetes | AWS | No | N/A | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Managed kubernetes by AWS |
| Azure AKS | SRE / DevOps | Azure Kubernetes | Azure | No | N/A | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Managed kubernetes by Azure |
| Google kubernetes Engine (GKE) | SRE / DevOps | Google Kubernetes | GCP | No | N/A | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Managed kubernetes by Google Cloud |
| Digital Ocean Kubernetes | SRE / DevOps | Digital Ocean Kubernetes | Digital Ocean | No | N/A | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Managed kubernetes by Digital Ocean Cloud |
| Alibaba Container Service for kubernetes (ACK) | SRE / DevOps | Alibaba Kubernetes | Alibaba Cloud | No | N/A | Yes | No | No | yes | Yes | |
| Oracle Kubernetes Engine (OKE) | SRE / DevOps | Oracle Kubernetes | Oracle Cloud | No | N/A | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Managed kubernetes by Oracle Cloud |
| Terraform (kubernetes the hard way) | SRE / DevOps | Kubernetes Upstream | AWS EKS, Google GKE, Azure AKS, Digital Ocean, Alibaba, Oracle Cloud |
No | N/A | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | kubernetes installer compliant with all the major public cloud providers (the hard way). It does not use the official installers offered by each cloud provider. |
| Kubespray on Public Cloud | SRE / DevOps | Kubernetes Upstream | AWS, GCE, Azure, Oracle Cloud (experimental) |
Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | |
| Kubespray on Private Cloud | SRE / DevOps | Kubernetes Upstream | OpenStack, vSphere, Packet (bare metal), or baremetal |
Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | |
| Conjure-up | SRE / DevOps | Kubernetes Upstream | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | ||
| weave.works | SRE / DevOps / Devel | Kubernetes Upstream | |||||||||
| WKSctl | SRE / DevOps | Kubernetes Upstream | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | ||
| Caravan | SRE / DevOps | Kubernetes Upstream | Yes | OSS | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | ||
| ClusterAPI | SRE / DevOps | Kubernetes Upstream | Yes | OSS | Yes | No | No | No | |||
| Kind | Devel | Kubernetes Upstream | Yes | OSS | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Not designed for production use; it is intended for development and testing environments. |
|
| Ubuntu Charmed Kubernetes | SRE / DevOps / Devel | Kubernetes Upstream | |||||||||
| VMware Pivotal Container Service (PKS) | SRE / DevOps | PKS / Cloud Foundry PaaS (no kubernetes) |
vSphere, multi-cloud, public-cloud | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Pivotal Container Service (PKS) adquired by VMware in 2019. Cloud Foundry PaaS that compites with kubernetes. |
| VMware vSphere 7 with Kubernetes | SRE / DevOps | VMware Kubernetes | vSphere | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | VMware’s kubernetes |
| VMware Kubernetes Tanzu (PKS renamed) | SRE / DevOps | VMware Kubernetes | vSphere, multi-cloud, public-cloud | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Embed kubernetes natively into vSphere. Competes with OpenShift. |
| Mirantis Docker Enterprise 3.1+ with Kubernetes | SRE / DevOps | Mirantis Kubernetes | multi-cloud, private & public cloud | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Istio, Windows and Linux Worker nodes |
| ==================================== | ================== | ====================== | ========================== | ============================================= |