__brennerm ¶

Kind definition ¶

KinD is another Kubernetes SIGs project but is quite different compared to minikube.

As the name suggests it moves the cluster into Docker containers. This leads to a significantly faster startup speed compared to spawning VM.

Creating a cluster is very similar to minikube’s approach. Executing kind create cluster, playing the waiting game and afterwards you are good to go. By using different names (–name) kind allows you to create multiple instances in parallel.

One feature that I personally enjoy is the ability to load my local images directly into the cluster. This saves me a few extra steps of setting up a registry and pushing my image each and every time I want to try out my changes. With a simple kind load docker-image my-app:latest the image is available for use in my cluster. Very nice!

If you are looking for a way to programmatically create a Kubernetes cluster, kind kindly (you have been for waiting for this, don’t you :P) publishes its Go packages that are used under the hood.

If you want to get to know more have a look at the GoDocs and check out how KUDO uses kind for their integration tests.

minikube ¶

minikube is a Kubernetes SIGs project and has been started more than three years ago.

It takes the approach of spawning a VM that is essentially a single node K8s cluster. Due to the support for a bunch of hypervisors it can be used on all of the major operating systems. This also allows you to create multiple instances in parallel.

From a user perspective minikube is a very beginner friendly tool.

You start the cluster using minikube start, wait a few minutes and your kubectl is ready to go. To specify a Kubernetes version you can use the –kubernetes-version flag. A list of supported versions can be found here.

If you are new to Kubernetes the first class support for its dashboard that minikube offers may help you.

With a simple minikube dashboard the application will open up giving you a nice overview of everything that is going on in your cluster.

This is being achieved by minikube’s addon system that helps you integrating things like, Helm, Nvidia GPUs and an image registry with your cluster.

Summary ¶

I was a long time minikube user as there where simply no alternatives (at least I never heard of one) and to be honest…it does a pretty good job at being a local Kubernetes development environment.

You create the cluster, wait a few minutes and you are good to go.

However for my use cases (mostly playing around with tools that run on K8s) I could fully replace it with kind due to the quicker setup time.

If you are working in an environment with a tight resource pool or need an even quicker startup time, K3s is definitely a tool you should consider.

All in all these three tools are doing the job while using different approaches and focusing on different use cases.

I hope you got a better understanding on how they work and which is the best candidate for solving your upcoming issue.

Feel free to share your experience and let me know about use cases you are realizing with minikube, kind or k3s at @__brennerm.

Below you can find a table that lists a few key facts of each tool.