Kubernetes is getting a lot of love in the Dev and DevOps community, and rightfully so. This survey from CNCF found that there are now nearly 7M cloud-native software developers around the world, with larger enterprises and more experienced developers in North America and Western Europe driving the rapid adoption of these technologies.
The significant interest in Kubernetes, and its rise in adoption, is quite simply because it's highly beneficial for those that create and distribute software. This is true for both in-house developers building in-house apps, and those that work for independent software vendors (ISVs) building commercial apps.
With developers standardizing on containers as their development tooling, it's inevitable that the release teams from commercial software vendors will be recommending their management teams pivot, and solely release their products as containers. Let's face it, ISVs have a lot to gain from shipping as containers, being easier to maintain/update and easier to support.
The problem is, not every company out there develops software, in fact it's fair to say that the vast majority of companies have very little in the way of in-house software development capability.
There are literally millions of companies that BUY commercial 'off the shelf' software, install it, and get on with the job of running their business. Just think how many companies are powered by SAP, MS Dynamics (or any other ERP), Manufacturing Execution Systems, Finance Systems, and CRM systems, let alone ecommerce solutions, warehousing solutions, relational databases / BI solutions, even API/EDI Gateways, you name it. Sure some of these organizations might have one or two people creating ancillary (user-facing) apps supporting their core "systems of record", but these developers are likely web/business/mobile developers, not full stack hardcore infrastructure experts.
These same companies will likely have their own internal IT team (or outsourced IT support), who are quite used to INSTALLING software on virtual servers. These people likely have very little exposure to containers, let alone Kubernetes. So what happens to these companies when they are forced to come to grips with their software vendor mandating Kubernetes? Do these companies need to look for a new software vendor? Or do they instead need a way to get a Kubernetes platform running, their purchased app running, and be able to support this "stack" without having to go out and hire a new team of experts (talk about piling on OPEX costs).
We believe that the Kubernetes ecosystem is too focussed on Dev and DevOps, and there are not enough organizations looking to help those that need to use Kubernetes, not by choice.
Portainer has been designed from day 1 with non-expert users in mind. We do not require Portainer users to have prior knowledge of Kubernetes to start using Kubernetes. Shocking as it might sound, there are companies out there that expect their IT systems to be easy to use and want Kubernetes to be as invisible as VMware is in their stack... it's there, but no one really cares about it.
Portainer's intuitive Kubernetes UI guides operators to deploy container-based applications (that ship either as pure standalone docker containers, as a docker compose file, as a Kubernetes Manifest, or as a HELM chart) in a really simple manner. So simple in fact that with some basic instructions (which the vendor can provide), any IT administrator could use Portainer to deploy near any application, of almost limitless complexity.
Don't for one second think that Portainer is ONLY a simple UI, we are so much more. Simplicity with massive compromise is useless, we abstract away complexity without having to give up capability, and that is an artform. In addition, as users become more familiar with Kubernetes (which is inevitable), their use of Portainer can change to being more automation centric.
How many other Kubernetes tools can you think of out there that can make this same claim? Maybe 1 or 2 at best, but for sure >95% are focused on expert Developers / DevOps engineers. This isn't a bad thing, not at all, it's just not the only need out there.
Give Portainer's Kubernetes management platform a go with 3 nodes free and see how easy it SHOULD be.
Neil
Keen to compare enterprise Kubernetes platforms? In this blog post we've put 3 popular options under the microscope to see how they differ, and the pros and cons of each solution. Check out the feature comparison table to learn which tool is right for you. Compare Portainer vs Rancher vs OpenShift.