Kubernetes is one of the most popular technologies around today. So, it’s no surprise that there are an awful lot of open source libraries, tools, and other assorted goodies out there on GitHub.
We like to keep an eye on what’s fresh for developers, so today we’re taking a look at five different Kubernetes tools for developers. From serverless functions to local development, GitHub has thousands of open source tools to enjoy. Here are five interesting ones we want to take a closer look at!
As always, this list is subjective and is based off our own experiences. If you think we’ve totally missed out on a crucial Kubernetes tool that you use every day, let us know in the comments below!
Minikube
Improve your local cluster experience with Minikube! Minikube is a tool that makes it easy to run Kubernetes locally. Minikube is often suggested to beginners, since it allows users to run a single-node Kubernetes cluster inside a VM on their laptop. That way, they can try the Kubernetes experience without needing to get everything set up. Minikube is also great for developers who are just dabbling and want a day-to-day developing setup.
New users can run a Kubernetes cluster and work with curated examples without needing extensive knowledge. Minikube does this by only using kubectl and a reduced number of Kubernetes functions. Minikube works with macOS, Linux, Windows, and other OSes. It’s got a simple command setup (and teardown), with minimal dependencies and resource overhead.
If you’re looking to try out Kubernetes or develop locally, why not try Minikube? More information is available here.
Tilt
Tilt promises a stress-free experience for local Kubernetes microservice development. Developing microservices is easier than ever, since Tilt lets developers edit in their own IDEs and save to their own file systems. Now, developers can work on their microservices in an environment perfectly configured for their team.
This tool wrangles your microservices for you, by collecting problems from across tools and services into one UI. Tilt also neatly jumps around the dependency problem by running everything in containers. You won’t have to say, “well, it worked on my machine”; the right dependencies will be there! Complex projects are optimized for a minimal footprint and speedy upload.
Setup is easy if you already have a Dockerfile and a Kubernetes configuration. More information about Tilt is available here!
Rook
Storage solutions usually involve going to IKEA and looking at plastic containers. But for Kubernetes, there’s Rook! Rook is a cloud-native storage orchestrator for Kubernetes that is still incubating with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. It provides support for a wide set of storage solutions for native integration cloud environments.
Basically, Rook takes ordinary storage software and has it manage itself. By using the underlying tools and facilities of Kubernetes, Rook makes it possible for storage services to automate deployment, bootstrap, configure, provision, scale, upgrade, and migrate on their own. Right now, Rook has a limited number of supported storage providers, but that list is growing by the day!
More information about Rook is available here!
Rancher
Looking to scale up your Kubernetes clusters? Now you can manage hundreds of clusters from the same interface! Rancher provides a container management platform designed to deploy lots of containers in production. Following the DevOps ethos, Rancher gives developers the ability to run Kubernetes everywhere on any provider.
This is primarily a management tool, bringing extra, unified control to your clusters. Rancher centrally manages an astonishing number of clusters, even giving global admins the ability to control cluster access from one location if needed. This platform has detailed monitoring and alerting, ships logs, and can even integrate directly with Helm. There’s even a pipeline engine to automatically deploy and upgrade workloads if you don’t have your own external CI/CD system. More information about Rancher is available here!
Fission
Serverless, with Kubernetes? I know it seems counter-intuitive, but thanks to Fission, developers can enjoy fast serverless functions for their Kubernetes implementations. Fission provides a serverless framework for Kubernetes with a focus on high performance and developer productivity, with a speedy 100ms start time.
Fission brings serverless functions to microservices by using Kubernetes as a foundation. Plus, this means that regular Kubernetes operations like monitoring or log aggregation can be brought to your Fission deployment.
Extensible to any language, Fission just operates on the code. While the core of Fission is written in Go, Kubernetes and Docker are abstracted away under normal operations. Plus, Fission suppers a number of other languages like Python, Node.js, PHP, and more.
More information about Fission is available here.