Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
Fully managed Kubernetes service for running containerized applications on AWS and on-premises
Open-Source Projects
Discover top open-source software, updated regularly with real-world adoption signals.
Discover top open-source software, updated regularly with real-world adoption signals.
Lightweight, production‑ready Kubernetes in a single <100 MB binary
K3s delivers a fully conformant Kubernetes distribution that runs with half the memory, a sub‑100 MB binary, and minimal OS dependencies—ideal for edge, IoT, CI, and ARM environments.
K3s is built for teams that need a production‑ready Kubernetes cluster but cannot afford the resource overhead of a full upstream stack. It shines on edge gateways, IoT devices, CI pipelines, development laptops, and ARM‑based servers where memory and storage are at a premium.
Packaged as a single <100 MB binary, K3s bundles containerd, flannel, CoreDNS, Traefik, and a lightweight datastore (sqlite3 by default) while remaining fully conformant with upstream Kubernetes APIs. Optional back‑ends such as etcd, MySQL, MariaDB, or Postgres can replace the default datastore. The distribution includes built‑in TLS management, automatic node‑to‑server connection handling, and real‑time manifest syncing, reducing operational complexity.
Installation is a one‑liner (curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -) that registers the service with systemd or OpenRC and generates a kubeconfig at /etc/rancher/k3s/k3s.yaml. Workers join by setting K3S_URL and K3S_TOKEN. Minimal OS requirements (kernel, cgroup mounts) and the ability to swap out bundled components make K3s adaptable to a wide range of environments while keeping the footprint small.
When teams consider K3s, these hosted platforms usually appear on the same shortlist.
Fully managed Kubernetes service for running containerized applications on AWS and on-premises
Managed Kubernetes service that simplifies deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications on Azure
Managed Kubernetes for deploying and scaling containers
Looking for a hosted option? These are the services engineering teams benchmark against before choosing open source.
Edge gateway cluster for remote sensor aggregation
Collects and processes sensor data locally with minimal latency and resource consumption.
CI pipeline Kubernetes executor
Spins up disposable clusters for test runs, reducing build times and infrastructure costs.
Development environment on a laptop
Provides a full Kubernetes API for local testing without consuming excessive RAM or storage.
ARM‑based home server orchestration
Runs container workloads on Raspberry Pi or similar devices with a single binary install.
K3s packages core Kubernetes components plus essential add‑ons into a single binary, uses sqlite3 by default, and removes in‑tree cloud and storage drivers to reduce size and memory usage.
Yes, K3s supports etcd, MySQL, MariaDB, and PostgreSQL as alternative datastores.
K3s is fully conformant with upstream APIs, so standard manifests, Helm charts, and kubectl commands work unchanged.
A Linux kernel with cgroup support, basic networking, and minimal utilities; the binary itself is under 100 MB and runs on x86_64 and ARM architectures.
Export K3S_URL pointing to the server and K3S_TOKEN from /var/lib/rancher/k3s/server/node-token, then run the install script on the worker.
Project at a glance
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