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K3s Lightweight Kubernetes vs. Microsoft Azure IoT Edge

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    K3s Lightweight Kubernetes

    Score9.5 out of 10
    N/AK3s is a lightweight, certified Kubernetes distribution built for IoT & Edge computing, developed by Rancher Labs, which is now supported by SUSE since the 2020 acquisition. K3s is available free and open source under the Apache 2.0 license.N/A

    Azure IoT Edge

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AAzure IoT Edge is a fully managed service built on Azure IoT Hub. Users can deploy cloud workloads—artificial intelligence, Azure and third-party services, or business logic—to run on Internet of Things (IoT) edge devices via standard containers. The vendor states that by moving certain workloads to the edge of the network, devices spend less time communicating with the cloud, react more quickly to local changes, and operate reliably even in extended offline periods.N/A
    Pricing
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesAzure IoT Edge
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesAzure IoT Edge
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Features
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesAzure IoT Edge
    Internet of Things
    Comparison of Internet of Things features of K3s Lightweight Kubernetes and Microsoft Azure IoT Edge
    Feature
    K3s Lightweight Kubernetes
    8.0
    1 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Microsoft Azure IoT Edge
    8.4
    4 Ratings
    5% above category average
    IoT Device Management8.01 Ratings8.04 Ratings
    Device Security8.01 Ratings10.04 Ratings
    IoT Data Management00 Ratings9.04 Ratings
    IoT Analytics00 Ratings7.04 Ratings
    IoT Integration00 Ratings8.04 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesAzure IoT Edge
    Small Businesses
    AWS IoT Core
    Score10 out of 10
    AWS IoT Core
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    AWS IoT Core
    Score10 out of 10
    AWS IoT Core
    Score10 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesAzure IoT Edge
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (4 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesAzure IoT Edge
    Likelihood to Recommend
    SUSE
    K3s Lightweight Kubernetes is well suited for local development. K3s Lightweight Kubernetes is not well suited when you need backward support. In the case that you want to test an application that is still using deprecated APIs or CRDs which are supported on popular managed Cloud Kubernetes Distributions, because K3s Lightweight Kubernetes is trying to be a lightweight application and dropping early support for APIs/CRDs marked for deprication K3s Lightweight Kubernetes will not be a good solution. If you are trying to test Kubernetes etc, functionality, K3s Lightweight Kubernetes is not a good case since it's using Dqlite or SQLite.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Deployment of mission critical business support solutions particularly those that support virtual learning and video conferencing environments. This is because they help organisations such as the university to effectively transition to a digitally compliant organisation.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    SUSE
    • Virtual clusters
    • IoT devices
    • Local development
    • Raspberry Pi
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • It works even if there is no internet at client location. It will record all the generated data and only send them to cloud storage when there is internet connection.
    • It allows you to bring cloud functionality down to Edge location in the form of docker container.
    • It also supports two way communication from device to cloud and vice-versa.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    SUSE
    • Option to deploy a self managed k3s in the cloud
    • Support to deploy it with kubeadm
    • Integration with prometheus & grafana
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • For some reason, the containerized architecture was also making this very hard
    • Had some issues when debugging edge modules, needs a professional grade remote debugging
    • Industrial automation still requires attention. OPC-UA was good but Modbus or custom PLCs etc was painful to set up
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    SUSE
    No answers on this topic
    Microsoft
    Most of the time it works perfectly, does not require any attention, but when there is a problem, it's really hard to diagnose it. I think the documentation for the positive scenarios are good on the Microsoft side, but for negative scenarios, I don't think there is enough community help out there, in my opinion.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    SUSE
    We have mostly used kind, minikube, and Docker Desktop Kubernetes for local development. Only kind has lower resource requirements, but K3s Lightweight Kubernetes seems to be even lighter. It is a big benefit to be able to deploy a K3s Lightweight Kubernetes cluster in seconds locally in our workstation, there is no cost, and it makes it easy to redeploy from scratch no matter how many times we want. The removal of deprecated APIs or CRDs also makes it more secure since it reduces unnecessarily exposed attack vectors.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    The reason Behind this is the cost, as Microsoft provides solutions and integrations of services cheaper than AWS.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    SUSE
    • Engineers have been able to run more microservices locally with K3s Lightweight Kubernetes instead of Minikube, which is more resources hungry
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Very valuable return on investment for IT capex committed to the deployment
    • Improvements in overall organisational efficiency and agility
    • Repositioning the organisation to become digitally transformed
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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