Docker vs. Kubernetes

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Docker
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Docker Enterprise was sold to Mirantis in 2019; that product is now sold as Mirantis Kubernetes Engine. But Docker now offers a 2-product suite that includes Docker Desktop, which they present as a fast way to containerize applications on a desktop; and, Docker Hub, a service for finding and sharing container images with a team and the Docker community, a repository of container images with an array of…
$0
unlimited public repositories
Kubernetes
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Kubernetes is an open-source container cluster manager.N/A
Pricing
DockerKubernetes
Editions & Modules
Free
$0
unlimited public repositories
Pro
$5.00
per month per user
Team
$7.00
per month per user
Business
$21
per month per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DockerKubernetes
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DockerKubernetes
Considered Both Products
Docker
Chose Docker
Our team uses Lando which is built on top of Docker. This makes using Docker even easier.
Chose Docker
It is easy to use. we can manage multiple images in docker hub. Docker desktop is for accessing images in our desktop. It is very much user friendly as compare to podman.
Chose Docker
Docker is by far the industry leader and mainstay when it comes to virtual machines, its really hard to justify using another service like Vagrant. The upcoming monetization of Docker desktop should make things interesting though.
Chose Docker
We need a solution where initially we can use an OS to trigger our pipeline to be used by terraform and then later in ansible. After doing all work it automatically get exited and we can reclaim the space of our VM. So we created a gitlab pipeline and at the initial stage we …
Chose Docker
The features and capabilities provided by Docker are incomparable and much vast in nature. Docker is much light weight and easy to onboard into the tech stack. It is also well supported by Container orchestration systems like Kubernetes which will be critical when applications …
Chose Docker
Did use containerd or LXC for brief evaluation in the past, but settled on Docker and only see Docker as the mainstay for most organizations I worked in, as the container tool of choice so far. Docker is matured, feature-rich, and reliable enough to be the main choice all …
Chose Docker
The reason why we are still using Docker right now is due to that is the best among its peers and suits our needs the best. However, the trend we foresee for the future might indicate Amazon lambda could potentially fit our needs to code enviornmentless in the near future.
Chose Docker
Podman has been used within our Red Hat environment, and although it supports deployments outside of RHEL, it's not as easy as Docker.
Chose Docker
Docker provides is effective container management and orchestration platform. It is highly suitable for Linux environments and allows the easy and quick deployment of production applications Other alternatives use replication and management of the virtual machines. Docker …
Kubernetes
Chose Kubernetes
We evaluated Docker Swarm as usage of docker is very distributed in our company. But docker swarm has not as many features as kubernetes and we have large, complex architectures which require good scalability and robustness - this is a huge strength of kubernetes compared to …
Chose Kubernetes
It stacks well against OpenShift. The only downside for OpenShift is the multiple operators and the custom logic implemented in the product, plus the upgrades, which tend to be a bit longer due to the more complex implementation. Overall, these are similar products but with a …
Chose Kubernetes
Nomad is a simpler, more down-to-earth alternative to Kubernetes. In some sense, it is more similar to Amazon's ECS, but with more bells and whistles. For use cases not requiring the whole complexity of Kubernetes platform, Nomad can provide a much simpler and at the same time …
Chose Kubernetes
Well, me and me team select Kubernetes for the natural solution and the easily assignation of resources to deploy a solution than could have multiple clients in the same infrastructure, so, for each one client we are running a set of different pods, and that's why we select …
Chose Kubernetes
As I said earlier also -
- K8s manage the workloads better as compared to OpenStack in terms of reliability, observability & reachability.
- K8s is not limited to only a single networking or storage solution as compared to OpenStack.
Chose Kubernetes
Kubernetes cluster is cable to manage multiple nodes on on-premises or cloud infrastructure. In Kubernetes, we can easily add new nodes when ever required. We can easily update and rollback our application hosted on Kubernetes with the help of rolling and blue green deployment. …
Chose Kubernetes
Most of the required features for any orchestration tool or framework, which is provided by Kubernetes. After understanding all modules and features of the K8S, it is the best fit for us as compared with others out there.
Chose Kubernetes
I didn't have too much experience or exposure to OpenShift but I do remember that in certain areas our organization found Kubernetes to be more useful and met our needs in comparison to OpenShift. Although I can't compare, I think it's easier to customize Kubernetes because of …
Chose Kubernetes
Kubernetes is very unique. I do not think there are any competitors to take over its leading place. And you can always use Kuberntes with other tools to make the whole system better. Kubernetes is backed up by Google and has been tested over the years. It is reliable, fast, and …
Chose Kubernetes
When planning our latest product we tried out many hosted container service and a few local tools. These included services run by Google, Microsoft, and Amazon and tools from companies like Docker and Apache. We ended up selecting Kubernetes because it was compatible with all …
Chose Kubernetes
I used OpenShift v2 - which was pre-Kubernetes. (It now uses Kubernetes under the hood - but keeps it fairly hidden). Kubernetes was a ton more stable and easier to use. No more custom CLI to use in order to script together deployments. No more messy ‘push your entire code …
Chose Kubernetes
Docker Swarm is not as advanced as Kubernetes and there are no out of the box solutions for auto scaling and deployment strategies. Docker swarm doesnot have much experience with production deployments at scale. Swarm has a smaller community, and less frequent releases as …
Chose Kubernetes
With AWS ECS, you have to provision the virtual hardware, then use that hardware as a pool for your container service. Each service has to be built out and scaled independently. Kubernetes allows us to use a cluster of machines like a big pool of resources, scaling and shipping …
Chose Kubernetes
Kubernetes is a great alternative to cloud hosted expensive solutions. It is extremely well documented and maintained. It is probably the best home-grown solution available for container infrastructure management.
Chose Kubernetes
We already had an enterprise Kubernetes 8 set up, so once we got our namespace it took me about 2 weeks to go from not knowing anything to having a self-contained jar in a container, running on Kubernetes 8. In comparison, it took me two weeks to install Java on a blank server …
TrustRadius Insights
DockerKubernetes
Highlights

TrustRadius
Research Team Insight
Published

Docker and Kubernetes are both container management software but offer different features that make them difficult to compare. Notably, while Docker and Kubernetes can run separately, many businesses also use both, as they have many unique features. Docker is designed to create containers, while Kubernetes focuses on controlling and managing containers. Kubernetes is most popular with large enterprises, while Docker is popular with businesses of all sizes.

Features and Limitations

Docker is an open-source file type and software that allows users to create and destroy containers. Containers are isolated packages of software and their dependencies, making them entirely self-sufficient. This is important as many technologies have large amounts of dependencies. Isolating software with its dependencies allows for quick and simple communication. Additionally, Docker containers allow businesses to use fewer virtual machines. Docker containers are easy for developers to work with. One challenge with Docker containers is that it can be difficult to get containers to share data or communicate with each other. Additionally, it can be challenging to scale with many container instances.

Kubernetes is an open-source orchestration software that helps businesses manage their containers, whether they are created via Docker or another software. Kubernetes reduces complexity when deploying containers across multiple servers as it can manage both containers and virtual machine instances. Where Docker containers run well on a single node, as complexity increases, Kubernetes allows businesses to manage many containers across a cluster of nodes. On its own, Kubernetes is less efficient for single nodes, or small scale projects.

Utilized together, Kubernetes and Docker allow users to benefit from containers on small projects and easily manage them as they grow. For businesses that aren’t worried about scaling, Docker alone may be a good choice, while organizations that are already developing at scale may prefer Kubernetes.

Pricing

Kubernetes and Docker are both open-source software, so their source code is available online for free. For businesses looking for hosting as a service or additional support, there are a number of vendors that host either software. Pricing for either software is dependent on the vendor, as well as support and feature needs.

Features
DockerKubernetes
Container Management
Comparison of Container Management features of Product A and Product B
Docker
-
Ratings
Kubernetes
9.2
Ratings
12% above category average
Security and Isolation00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Container Orchestration00 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Cluster Management00 Ratings9.70 Ratings
Storage Management00 Ratings8.40 Ratings
Resource Allocation and Optimization00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Discovery Tools00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Update Rollouts and Rollbacks00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Self-Healing and Recovery00 Ratings9.20 Ratings
Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
DockerKubernetes
Small Businesses
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
Portainer
Portainer
Score 9.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Git
Git
Score 10.0 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
DockerKubernetes
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(0 ratings)
8.7
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DockerKubernetes
Likelihood to Recommend
You are going to be able to find the most resources and examples using Docker whenever you are working with a container orchestration software like Kubernetes. There will always some entropy when you run in a container, a containerized application will never be as purely performant as an app running directly on the OS. However, in most scenarios this loss will be negligible to the time saved in deployment, monitoring, etc.
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Along with all the best features and support by k8s, the automatic container scheduling to worker nodes and also self-healing containers which is what I like the most. On the other side, when I was installing the k8s cluster on CentOS 8, it was quite difficult for me, but never mind it is working as we expected and it is a one-time effort. Especially, in my case, there are more than 7 application containers required to run and communicate with each other, so for us, Kubernetes is an optimal solution.
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Pros
  • Kubernetes context switching - very handy
  • Integrate well and seamless - No complicated setup and or UX
  • Ease of updating images and etc - very important
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  • Complex cluster management can be done with simple commands with strong authentication and authorization schemes
  • Exhaustive documentation and open community smoothens the learning process
  • As a user a few concepts like pod, deployment and service are sufficient to go a long way
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Cons
  • It will be nice to see an admin UI for configuration of images
  • Container networking can be simplified
  • Data storage/volume management can be simplified
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  • Local development, Kubernetes does tend to be a bit complicated and unnecessary in environments where all development is done locally.
  • The need for add-ons, Helm is almost required when running Kubernetes. This brings a whole new tool to manage and learn before a developer can really start to use Kubernetes effectively.
  • Finicy configmap schemes. Kubernetes configmaps often have environment breaking hangups. The fail safes surrounding configmaps are sadly lacking.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
The Kubernetes is going to be highly likely renewed as the technologies that will be placed on top of it are long term as of planning. There shouldn't be any last minute changes in the adoption and I do not anticipate sudden change of the core underlying technology. It is just that the slow process of technology adoption that makes it hard to switch to something else.
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Usability
I have been using Docker for more than 3 years and it really simplifies the modern application development and deployment. I like the ability of Docker to improve efficiency, portability and scalability for developers and operations teams. Another reason for giving this rating is because Docker integrates CI/CD pipelines very well
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It is an eminently usable platform. However, its popularity is overshadowed by its complexity. To properly leverage the capabilities and possibilities of Kubernetes as a platform, you need to have excellent understanding of your use case, even better understanding of whether you even need Kubernetes, and if yes - be ready to invest in good engineering support for the platform itself
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Reliability and Availability
Haven't seen any outages, fatal/unrecoverable errors in my usage so far. Enough said.
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Docker Desktop. The CPU high usage is a known issue. Needs fixing. Otherwise, it is great overall. Would not use anything else still.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
We need a solution where initially we can use an OS to trigger our pipeline to be used by terraform and then later in ansible. After doing all work it automatically get exited and we can reclaim the space of our VM. So we created a gitlab pipeline and at the initial stage we defined a docker file which will be our base image and we performed all our activities inside that image to build infrastructure using terraform. Integration we have done in our gitlab pipeline and finally we remove the docker image so that the space can be reclaimed immediately.
Read full review
As I said earlier also - - K8s manage the workloads better as compared to OpenStack in terms of reliability, observability & reachability. - K8s is not limited to only a single networking or storage solution as compared to OpenStack. - Networking (which is a key concept) is much simpler in K8s as compared to OpenStack. - It is possible to upgrade your applications without downtime in K8s but in OpenStack, you either have to divert the traffic or face an outage because you have to delete the whole stack & then recreate it.
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Scalability
It is the only tool in our toolset that has not [had] any issues so far. That is really a mark of reliability, and it's a testimony to how well the product is made, and a tool that does its job well is a tool well worth having. It is the base tool that I would say any organisation must have if they do scalable deployment.
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • With Docker adoption, were able to reduce 40% of the time taken to complete workspace setup
  • Provided the environment packaging / configurability capability which enabled resource sharing and interoperability across teams
  • Were able to leverage off the shelf images provided by leading product companies which increased reliability and security exponently
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  • Because of microservices, Kubernetes makes it easy to find the cost of each application easily.
  • Like every new technology, initially, it took more resources to educate ourselves but over a period of time, I believe it's going to be worth it.
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ScreenShots