Kubernetes
Definition.
Kubernetes: An open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management.
In More Detail
Kubernetes solves scheduling containers across many machines, restarting them when they fail, and rolling out new versions without downtime. Those are genuine problems at a certain scale.
Below that scale it mostly adds operational surface area. For a solo developer or small team shipping one or two services, a managed platform that takes a container and runs it delivers most of the benefit with none of the cluster to maintain. I would rather spend that time on the product.
In Practice
For most projects at the scale I typically build (early-stage startups, SMEs), Docker Compose on a single well-sized server is simpler to operate than Kubernetes — I'd only bring in Kubernetes once a project has genuinely outgrown that, not by default.
Related Terms
Browse the full software development glossary, or see the frequently asked questions.
If you are working out whether this applies to your own project, the case studies show where it turned up in real builds, services lists what I take on, and pricing gives the starting figures.
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