Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

k3s VS Docker Desktop

Compare k3s VS Docker Desktop and see what are their differences

k3s logo k3s

K3s is a lightweight Kubernetes distribution by Rancher Labs intended for IoT, Edge, and cloud deployments.

Docker Desktop logo Docker Desktop

Docker Desktop is a one-click-install application that lets you to build, share, and run containerized applications and microservices.
  • k3s Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-11-09
Not present

k3s videos

Siroko K3s Sun Glasses Unboxing and Review | Big Muscle Gains

More videos:

  • Review - Elecraft K3S Transceiver Review

Docker Desktop videos

Docker Desktop Overview

More videos:

  • Review - Docker Desktop for macOS Setup and Tips

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to k3s and Docker Desktop)
Cloud Computing
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
80 80%
20% 20
DevOps Tools
83 83%
17% 17
Containers As A Service
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using k3s and Docker Desktop. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, k3s seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 160 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

k3s mentions (160)

  • 26 Top Kubernetes Tools
    K3s is another compact Kubernetes distribution. Developed by SUSE, it's packaged as a single binary that comes in at less than 70MB. Despite this tiny footprint, K3s is certified as compatible with upstream Kubernetes, is ready for production use, and supports high availability. - Source: dev.to / 2 days ago
  • Linux fu: getting started with systemd
    For self-hosting I've found https://k3s.io to be really good from the SUSE people. Works on basically any Linux distro and makes self-hosting k8s not miserable. - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • 15 Options To Build A Kubernetes Playground (with Pros and Cons)
    K3S: is a lightweight distribution of Kubernetes that is designed for resource-constrained environments. It is an excellent option for running Kubernetes on a virtual machine or cloud server. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • K3s Traefik Ingress - configured for your homelab!
    I recently purchased a used Lenovo M900 Think Centre (i7 with 32GB RAM) from eBay to expand my mini-homelab, which was just a single Synology DS218+ plugged into my ISP's router (yuck!). Since I've been spending a big chunk of time at work playing around with Kubernetes, I figured that I'd put my skills to the test and run a k3s node on the new server. While I was familiar with k3s before starting this project,... - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Building a no-code Helm UI with Windmill - Part 1
    I’ve created a local cluster with K3S and installing Windmill could not be simpler with just one chart to configure, which already has sane defaults to get started. For this demo we will also configure workers to passthrough environment variables to our scripts so that they have access to the Kubernetes API server for later. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
View more

Docker Desktop mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Docker Desktop yet. Tracking of Docker Desktop recommendations started around Mar 2024.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing k3s and Docker Desktop, you can also consider the following products

Kubernetes - Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers

Portainer - Simple management UI for Docker

k3sup - from Zero to KUBECONFIG in < 1 min 🚀. Contribute to alexellis/k3sup development by creating an account on GitHub.

Dockge - A fancy, easy-to-use and reactive self-hosted docker compose.yaml stack-oriented manager.

Podman Desktop - Containers and Kubernetes for application developers

Rancher - Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service