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What’s the difference between Docker Compose and Kubernetes?
A rough description of where Docker, Docker Compose, Docker Cloud, and Kubernetes overlap and where one is dependent on the other
3 min readNov 5, 2021
Short answer:
docker-compose: is a tool that takes a YAML file which describes your multi-container application and helps you create, start/stop, remove all those containers without having to type multipledocker ...commands for each container.Kubernetes: is a platform for managing containerized workloads and services, that facilitates both declarative configuration and automation.
Docker Compose
(from the docs): Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. With Compose, you use a YAML file to configure your application’s services. Then, with a single command, you create and start all the services from your configuration. Compose has commands for managing the whole lifecycle of your application:
- Start, stop, and rebuild services
- View the status of running services
- Stream the log output of running services
- Run a one-off command on a service
Kubernetes
(from Introduction to Kubernetes): Kubernetes is a container orchestrator like Docker Swarm, Mesos Marathon, Amazon ECS, Hashicorp…
