What are the best Docker cluster managers?

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Feb 4, 2019

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3 Options Considered

Best Docker cluster managers	Price	Last Updated
-- Docker Swarm	-	Sep 6, 2018
-- Kubernetes	-	Jul 28, 2016
-- Nomad	-	Jul 15, 2017

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score 8 · Answer 1

Docker Swarm

Top Pro

Easy setup

This also means that containers can be launched with a simple docker run command and Swarm will take care of the rest, such as selecting the appropriate host on which to run the container. See More

Top Con

Bounded by the limitations of the Docker API

If the Docker API doesn't support something, then you are pretty much out of luck when it comes to Docker Swarm, because it won't be supported by Swarm either. See More

Top Pro

Communicates with other Docker tools easily

Since Docker Swarm is a native Docker tool, it exposes the Docker API, making it possible to integrate it and communicate with other Docker tools (CLI, Compose, Krane, etc.). See More

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score 4 · Answer 2

Kubernetes

Top Pro

Built on several years of experience with Docker containers

Kubernetes was built on top of several years of experience from Google working on containers in production. It's a little opinionated on how containers should work and behave, but if used correctly it can help you achieve fault-tolerant systems. See More

Top Con

If used on an existing system, some re-organizing may be needed

Because of how opinionated Kubernetes is, it may be necessary to change some things if you decide to use Kubernetes as an orchestration tool in an existing application. See More

Top Pro

Supported on several PaaS

Kubernetes is currently supported by Google Compute Engine, Rackspace, Microsoft Azure, and vSphere. Work is being done to support Kubernetes on OpenShift and CloudFoundry. See More

Top Con

Cannot define containers through the Docker CLI

Kubernetes was not written for docker clustering alone. It uses a different API, configuration and different YAML definitions. So you can't use the Docker CLI or Docker Compose to define your containers. Everything has to be done from scratch. See More

Top Pro

Open Source

Kubernetes is free and open source. See More

Top Pro

Works well with modern operating systems

Kubernetes works very well with modern environments (such as CoreOS or Red Hat Atomc) which offer lightweight computing nodes that you don't have to manage, since they are managed for you. See More

Top Pro

Easy to do grouping tasks

Kubernetes uses labels which are key-value pairs that are attached to objects, usually pods. They are used to specify the characteristics of an object like the version, tier, etc. Labels are used to identify objects or groups of objects according to different characteristics that they may have, for example they can be used to identify all the pods that are included in the backend tier. Through labels it's easier to do grouping tasks for pods or containers, like moving pods to different groups or assigning them to load-balanced groups. See More

Top Pro

Great starting point for beginners

Kubernetes great for beginners who are just starting to work on clustering. It's probably the quickest and easiest way to start experimenting and learning cluster oriented development. See More

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score 3 · Answer 3

Nomad

Top Pro

Supports Retrying Failed Services and Jobs

If a task fails, which represents a service, the task is retried. This is configurable. Obviously this is expected for long running services, but this is also especially helpful with batch jobs. See More

Top Con

Not a complete tool

While other orchestration tools provide much more than just cluster management and scheduling (they also provide things like secrets management, discovery, monitoring, etc.), Nomad follows the Unix philosophy of doing only one thing and doing it well, providing only cluster management and scheduling. See More

Top Pro

Not just Docker

Nomad schedules many different types of tasks via Drivers, including: docker containers, forking processes, running jar files, rkt and VMs via QEMU. See more here https://www.nomadproject.io/docs/drivers/index.html See More

Top Pro

JSON based HTTP API

You can control and monitor jobs via a JSON based HTTP API. There is even the concept of a blocking query whereby you can use long pulling to wait for status updates about running jobs. See More

Top Pro

Simple, minimal architecture

Being focused on one thing only also has its advantages. For one, Nomad is very simple architecturally. There's only a single binary for both clients and servers, it also does not need any external services for any coordination or storage. See More

Top Pro

Complex applications can easily be expressed through Nomad

Nomad uses a high-level abstraction of jobs. Jobs are essentially task groups (sets of tasks). Because of this, Nomad allows users to develop and manage complex applications easily, without having to think about the individual containers that make these applications. See More

Top Pro

Scales batch workloads with queuing too.

Nomad has the concept of both a long running service and a batch job. When you submit a batch job that contains tasks, if you don't have immediate capacity in your cluster, tasks will queue up in nomad. As capacity frees up, nomad schedules the work. This is great if your workloads are heterogeneous in terms cpu, memory and how long they take to run. You don't have to scale up and down, unless you want faster throughput. If the throughput isn't as important, you can let things run as soon as a resource opens up. See More

Top Pro

Simple Setup

Servers and clients both leverage a pre-compiled binary. You execute this binary and point it at a config file. That's it for deployment. Also, the github repo for the project includes sample service config files https://github.com/hashicorp/nomad/tree/master/dist See More

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What are the best Docker cluster managers?

3 Options Considered

Docker Swarm

My Recommendation for Docker Swarm

My Recommendation for Docker Swarm

Easy setup

Bounded by the limitations of the Docker API

Communicates with other Docker tools easily

Kubernetes

My Recommendation for Kubernetes

My Recommendation for Kubernetes

Built on several years of experience with Docker containers

If used on an existing system, some re-organizing may be needed

Supported on several PaaS

Cannot define containers through the Docker CLI

Open Source

Works well with modern operating systems

Easy to do grouping tasks

Great starting point for beginners

Nomad

My Recommendation for Nomad

My Recommendation for Nomad

Supports Retrying Failed Services and Jobs

Not a complete tool

Not just Docker

JSON based HTTP API

Simple, minimal architecture

Complex applications can easily be expressed through Nomad

Scales batch workloads with queuing too.

Simple Setup

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