Kubernetes vs. Rancher: Understanding The Difference

Understanding Rancher

If you have found the idea of a container management complex, then it’s worth considering how complex it can get when the containers you need to use are also distributed across many different environments.

That’s why we have Rancher. It is also open-source and designed to simplify the rollout and handling of K8s clusters across various environments, which could include on-premise data centers, the public cloud, and even edge locations.

Rancher is not an alternative to Kubernetes. Instead, it acts as a layer on top of Kubernetes, adding capabilities that boil away some complexity, making it easier to adopt and operate Kubernetes at scale. Rancher's core functionalities include:

• Simplified cluster deployment: Its principal role is to streamline the deployment and provisioning of Kubernetes clusters. With it, you get a user-friendly interface and automated workflows, which makes it much easier to create and manage clusters.
   
• Multi-cluster management: Sometimes, a single cluster of containers is not enough – and here, Rancher allows you to manage multiple Kubernetes clusters from a single plane. You get a unified view of your infrastructure and the ability to apply consistent policies and configurations across clusters.
   
• Enhanced security and compliance: Containers are also vulnerable to security threats, and Rancher provides capabilities to protect Kubernetes, including authentication and authorization providers, role-based access control (RBAC), and other tools such as cybersecurity scanning.
   
• Monitoring and logging: It includes built-in monitoring and logging capabilities for K8s clusters. You get visibility into your applications' health and performance, helping you identify and troubleshoot issues proactively.
   
• Application catalog and workflows: Knowing what apps are available for containers helps Rancher offer an application catalog. It simplifies the installation and configuration of popular applications and services on Kubernetes. It also provides tools for creating custom workflows to automate common tasks.

So, many companies deploy Rancher when they want to adopt Kubernetes but also want to avoid the complexities of a complex system.

Comparing Kubernetes and Rancher

As we said, Kubernetes and Ranchers are not alternatives—they are complementary products. Kubernetes is the engine for orchestration, the component that makes it all work.

Rancher, on the other hand, is the user-friendly interface and management layer. Using Kubernetes alone can work for organizations that are comfortable with its complexity and seeking fine-grained control. That includes highly experienced DevOps teams and Kubernetes experts.

Rancher, in contrast, caters to organizations of all sizes and anyone interested in simplifying Kubernetes adoption. Rancher’s GUI is particularly helpful and offers comprehensive capabilities. It can also help improve cybersecurity.

Yes, it's true that Kubernetes excels at automated deployment, scalability, self-healing, load balancing, and service discovery, making it indispensable for complex, distributed systems.

But you might want to add Rancher to the top. It simplifies the management process – including when you apply things like a multi-cluster deployment. It’s hard to refuse the enhanced cybersecurity and compliance tools that come with Rancher – something you’d have to set up yourself if you used just Kubernetes.

Similarly, you can set up your own monitoring and logging, as well as application catalogs and workflows – all things you need if you deploy Kubernetes. But Rancher streamlines it all for you so your K8s adoption and management runs smoothly. It is essential for organizations with limited Kubernetes expertise.

When Should You Choose Kubernetes?

Kubernetes shines in scenarios that demand granular control, complex orchestration needs, and a willingness to invest in expertise.

If you rely on complex container clusters, Kubernetes is a go-to choice. It is a potent tool for intricate applications with long lists of microservices and many containers.

Thanks to Kubernetes’ robust orchestration capabilities, you can now handle this incredible complexity with finesse. Most apps require high availability and the ability to scale rapidly to meet fluctuating demand. Kubernetes' self-healing mechanisms and automatic scaling ensure that you can handle these expectations far more easily.

It's worth noting that Kubernetes is pretty much cloud-agnostic. You can harness Kubernetes in hybrid and multi-cloud deployments. You get a consistent platform for containerized workloads across different cloud providers or on-premises infrastructure when you do.

When Should You Choose Rancher?

Again, you can deploy both if you see the benefit of putting it on top of Kubernetes, which will help you gain further simplicity, ease of use, and multi-cluster management. Rancher's user-friendly interface and streamlined workflows make it much easier for organizations to adopt Kubernetes, even for companies with tech teams with relatively limited expertise.

Even if you have a lot of internal expertise, Rancher is essential for managing multiple clusters across different environments. Its control plane simplifies your operations and gives you a bird’s eye and unified view of your infrastructure.

Secure features are critical, too, and again, while you can implement these yourself, it does a good job of including important cybersecurity bits and pieces. Think about authentication, authorization, RBAC, and security scanning of your clusters. It all goes a long way to making your K8's environment much safer.

Can Kubernetes and Rancher Complement Each Other?

So yes, Kubernetes and Rancher are not mutually exclusive. They’re the perfect complement. Your level of internal skills and the complexity of your operations will determine whether you choose them.

Some organizations can leverage Kubernetes directly for its powerful orchestration tools and rely on internal know-how to manage them. But sometimes, things just get too complex, and here, Rancher simplifies the setup and management of very complex Kubernetes clusters.

You could also argue that its intuitive interface and centralized control save your team time by automatically performing much of the monitoring and logging.

For companies that do not have much internal K8s expertise, Rancher could be a bridge, allowing you to harness the power of Kubernetes without spending money on expensive consultants or going through the steep learning curve yourself.

Here's a simple way of looking at it. It serves as the underlying orchestration engine, managing containers' deployment, scaling, and lifecycle. Rancher simplifies the provisioning and management of K8s clusters, providing a user-friendly interface, centralized control, and additional tools that enhance Kubernetes' capabilities.

Future Outlook for Kubernetes and Rancher

The future for both Kubernetes and Rancher looks bright because we’re set to see ongoing adoption of online-centric technologies such as containerization. As the uptake of online-native technologies keeps growing, so will the demand for robust container orchestration and management. Doing it manually isn’t feasible – tools such as Kubernetes and Rancher will be critical.

Kubernetes is expected to remain the cornerstone of container orchestration because it has already been widely adopted, and its extensive community backing helps organizations make the most of it.

We’re also seeing ongoing and continuous innovation in Kubernetes, so it’s unlikely that competitors will come along with hugely improved feature sets. Changes you can look out for include:

• Serverless Kubernetes: Integrating K8s with serverless computing frameworks such as Knative is set to go a long way in simplifying app development and deployments, mainly because we expect it to abstract away much of the infrastructure management.
   
• Edge computing: Kubernetes is expanding its reach to the edge, that is, devices working in remote locations away from centralized computing centers. That means better workload management on IoT gateways, which should help innovation in industrial automation and smart cities.
   
• AI and machine learning: Kubernetes is becoming a platform of choice for deploying and scaling AI and ML workloads, thanks to its ability to manage complex, distributed systems and its integration with tools like Kubeflow.

It’s easy to see why Rancher's future would align closely with whatever happens with Kubernetes. It continues penetrating the server market, so as a result, more and more organizations will settle for management tools like Rancher, which will grow.

For Rancher, we think we will see more focus on ease of use so that a wider audience can harness and access Kubernetes and companies can execute multi-cluster management more easily.

As security threats evolve, we also think Rancher will invest in more and more security so that users can protect their environments from emerging vulnerabilities.

Of course, it’s also possible that it may expand its capabilities beyond Kubernetes. Rancher management could, in the future, include many other cloud-native technologies, such as serverless functions and edge computing platforms.