kubernetes

Kubernetes is the industry standard for container orchestration, and that's precisely why you should think twice before using it. With 121k stars and 82% adoption among container users, it's the resume-driven default — but for indie hackers and small teams, it's almost certainly overkill.

Docker Swarm is simpler but effectively abandoned since 2019. HashiCorp Nomad offers a genuine middle ground — less complex than K8s, way more capable than Swarm, and it handles VMs and standalone apps too. For solo developers, a single VPS with Docker Compose gets you further than you'd think.

Use Kubernetes if you're running microservices at scale, need auto-healing, rolling deployments, and your team has dedicated DevOps capacity. Skip it for anything you can count on one hand.

The catch: the operational overhead is enormous. The learning curve is steep, the YAML is endless, and managed K8s services (EKS, GKE) still require significant expertise. If you're a solo founder, every hour spent on K8s configs is an hour not spent on your product.