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K3s Lightweight Kubernetes vs. Watson IoT Platform

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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

    Watson IoT Platform

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AThe IBM Watson IoT Platform is an Internet-of-things is a managed cloud-hosted solution supporting device connectivity, control, visualization, and overall device visibility and management. It provides a UI where users can add and manage devices, control access to IoT service, and monitor usage. With its device management service, users can perform device actions like rebooting or updating firmware, receive device diagnostics and metadata, or perform bulk device addition and removal.N/A
    Pricing
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
    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 KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
    Internet of Things
    Comparison of Internet of Things features of K3s Lightweight Kubernetes and Watson IoT Platform
    Feature
    K3s Lightweight Kubernetes
    8.0
    1 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Watson IoT Platform
    -
    Ratings
    IoT Device Management8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Device Security8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
    Small Businesses
    AWS IoT Core
    Score10 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    AWS IoT Core
    Score10 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.4
    (2 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    K3s Lightweight KubernetesWatson IoT Platform
    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.
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    IBM
    For large companies with large-scale manufacturing, electronics management, and infrastructures that require lots of maintenance, IBM Watson IoT is a must-have. It greatly increases performance, decreases downtime, and is an all-around great management dashboard. This is best for infrastructures that have a larger infrastructures of IoT devices in an enterprise/manufacturing setting, otherwise IBM Watson may not bring many benefits to your team.
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    Pros
    SUSE
    • Virtual clusters
    • IoT devices
    • Local development
    • Raspberry Pi
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    IBM
    • The asset information is available in both static and dynamic format (from thermal images, to OEM data, to time series data). The ability to ingest all the information using a single platform has great value.
    • Another benefit is a seamless integration with Maximo. This has been a challenge with other 3rd party systems available.
    • The experience of IBM Maximo systems updates is positive.
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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
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    IBM
    • Some of the tutorials could use a little more improvement - While there is a considerable amount of documentation, most of the good documentation for Watson IoT we found to be from third-parties.
    • Administration and billing tools could use a bit more improvement - The UI is a bit clunky and poorly-designed here.
    • Be prepared to work with IBM support to get this going - Their turn-around support for inquiries can be lengthy, and setup time may also be quite lengthy because of this.
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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.
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    IBM
    Predix has recently launched their Asset Performance management Unified system. I am keen to see how it stacks up against Watson.
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    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
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    IBM
    • Positive - This tool greatly increases most company's manufacturing and production efficiency, and the use-cases are extensive. It was a great way of decreasing down-time for us.
    • Negative - Took lots of work and energy to get up and running, we had to rely on IBM support and tutorials many times during this process.
    • Positive - Quite cheap, most of the tiers of pricing cost very little, and it's possible to use Watson IoT for a few months for free to see if it is beneficial for your company.
    Incentivized
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