A Comparison of Kubernetes and Kubernetes-Compatible Platforms

Nowadays, Kubernetes is an advanced container orchestration tool due to its high reliability, scalability and fault tolerance. However, Kubernetes requires a significant number of resources for its work. Therefore, to ensure the operation of Kubernetes in conditions of limited resources, lightweight analogues such as MicroKubernetes and K3S were created. These platforms provide easier deployment and support. In this paper, the authors analyze performance metrics for orchestration actions such as adding/removing nodes and starting/stopping deployments in terms of resource utilization, cluster startup speed, and consumed time for lightweight platforms and original Kubernetes. The results show that the original Kubernetes outperforms MicroKubernetes and K3S in many tests, but K3S demonstrates better disk utilization. On the other hand, MicroKubernetes demonstrates worst results in the performed tests.