Item: DigitalOcean Kubernetes
Rating: 9
Author: Charles Offenbacher

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use DigitalOcean Kubernetes to manage all of our public-facing API and async job worker deployments for a SaaS application. We deploy Rails and Hasura containers to the platform using Pulumi's Kubernetes provider.

DO Kubernetes manages SSL termination through DO load balancers, and we use nginx-ingress to direct traffic inside the cluster. We use DO Kubernetes in conjunction with hosted DO postgres on an internal network.

Pros and Cons

Hosted dashboard
Hosted container registry
Horizontal auto-scaling
LetsEncrypt SSL termination

Option for internal VPC-only deployment
Better integration with cloud firewall
Better integration with DO App platform via VPC

Most Important Features

Integration with cloud load balancers / SSL termination
Integration with container registry
Hosted and stable control plane
Automatic upgrades

Return on Investment

Excellent uptime
Low cost for provided value
Good integration with the rest of the DO platform to provide additional value

Alternatives Considered

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), Google Kubernetes Engine and AWS Lambda

DigitalOcean is the most affordable and straightforward of the hosted Kubernetes options we evaluated. All features that we require are supported without an excess of complication of extraneous features. Straightforward billing is also very important for us in comparison to the Big Three cloud hosts, which have very complicated billing practices. DigitalOcean also provides a platform with very little vendor lock-in.

Key Insights

Do you think DigitalOcean Kubernetes delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with DigitalOcean Kubernetes's feature set?

Yes

Did DigitalOcean Kubernetes live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of DigitalOcean Kubernetes go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy DigitalOcean Kubernetes again?

Yes

Other Software Used

PostgreSQL, Datadog, Snyk

Likelihood to Recommend

DO Kubernetes is well-suited for:
- deploying APIs
- deploying workers
- log collection and analysis (ie ELK stack)
- deploying Helm charts and anything that can be mapped on to K8s concepts

Less appropriate for anything requiring no public Internet access (ie VPC only).
Less appropriate for anything requiring integration with the DO app platform via VPC, at the moment.

DigitalOcean Kubernetes is a rock-solid managed K8s offering with straightforward pricing and feature set

Overall Satisfaction with DigitalOcean Kubernetes