Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Rancher VS Apache Flink

Compare Rancher VS Apache Flink and see what are their differences

Rancher logo Rancher

Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

Apache Flink logo Apache Flink

Flink is a streaming dataflow engine that provides data distribution, communication, and fault tolerance for distributed computations.
  • Rancher Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-24
  • Apache Flink Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-03

Rancher features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Rancher provides an intuitive interface for managing Kubernetes clusters, making it accessible for both seasoned DevOps professionals and those new to container orchestration.
  • Multi-Cluster Management
    Rancher simplifies the management of multiple Kubernetes clusters, whether they are on-premise, in the cloud, or a combination of both, from a single dashboard.
  • Comprehensive Monitoring
    Rancher includes built-in monitoring and alerting features using Prometheus and Grafana, providing robust insights into cluster health and performance.
  • Security and Access Control
    Rancher offers detailed Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) policies to ensure that users have appropriate permissions, enhancing security and compliance.
  • Integrated CI/CD Pipelines
    Rancher integrates seamlessly with popular CI/CD tools, streamlining the development and deployment process across multiple environments.
  • Scalability
    Rancher is designed to easily scale with your needs, supporting a large number of clusters and nodes efficiently.
  • Open-Source
    Rancher is an open-source project, which means it is free to use and benefit from community contributions and transparency.

Possible disadvantages of Rancher

  • Complex Initial Setup
    While Rancher simplifies ongoing management, the initial setup and configuration can be complex and time-consuming for newcomers.
  • Resource Intensive
    Running Rancher can be resource-intensive, requiring substantial CPU and memory, which might be a concern for smaller environments or budgets.
  • Potential Overhead
    Introducing Rancher adds an additional layer between the user and the Kubernetes clusters, potentially introducing latency and an extra point of failure.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite its user-friendly interface, Rancher encompasses a wide array of features that require time and effort to learn and utilize fully.
  • Limited Vendor Support
    Some cloud providers have more robust support and native tools for their Kubernetes services, which might make Rancher less appealing if tight integration with a specific provider's ecosystem is required.

Apache Flink features and specs

  • Real-time Stream Processing
    Apache Flink is designed for real-time data streaming, offering low-latency processing capabilities that are essential for applications requiring immediate data insights.
  • Event Time Processing
    Flink supports event time processing, which allows it to handle out-of-order events effectively and provide accurate results based on the time events actually occurred rather than when they were processed.
  • State Management
    Flink provides robust state management features, making it easier to maintain and query state across distributed nodes, which is crucial for managing long-running applications.
  • Fault Tolerance
    The framework includes built-in mechanisms for fault tolerance, such as consistent checkpoints and savepoints, ensuring high reliability and data consistency even in the case of failures.
  • Scalability
    Apache Flink is highly scalable, capable of handling both batch and stream processing workloads across a distributed cluster, making it suitable for large-scale data processing tasks.
  • Rich Ecosystem
    Flink has a rich set of APIs and integrations with other big data tools, such as Apache Kafka, Apache Hadoop, and Apache Cassandra, enhancing its versatility and ease of integration into existing data pipelines.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Flink

  • Complexity
    Flink’s advanced features and capabilities come with a steep learning curve, making it more challenging to set up and use compared to simpler stream processing frameworks.
  • Resource Intensive
    The framework can be resource-intensive, requiring substantial memory and CPU resources for optimal performance, which might be a concern for smaller setups or cost-sensitive environments.
  • Community Support
    While growing, the community around Apache Flink is not as large or mature as some other big data frameworks like Apache Spark, potentially limiting the availability of community-contributed resources and support.
  • Ecosystem Maturity
    Despite its integrations, the Flink ecosystem is still maturing, and certain tools and plugins may not be as developed or stable as those available for more established frameworks.
  • Operational Overhead
    Running and maintaining a Flink cluster can involve significant operational overhead, including monitoring, scaling, and troubleshooting, which might require a dedicated team or additional expertise.

Rancher videos

Slime Rancher Review - Worthabuy?

More videos:

  • Review - 2019 Honda Rancher 420 Review Long term 1000 plus KM
  • Review - TEST RIDE: 2015 Honda Rancher 420

Apache Flink videos

GOTO 2019 • Introduction to Stateful Stream Processing with Apache Flink • Robert Metzger

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Apache Flink Tutorial | Flink vs Spark | Real Time Analytics Using Flink | Apache Flink Training
  • Tutorial - How to build a modern stream processor: The science behind Apache Flink - Stefan Richter

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Rancher and Apache Flink)
DevOps Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Big Data
0 0%
100% 100
Developer Tools
89 89%
11% 11
Stream Processing
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Rancher and Apache Flink

Rancher Reviews

Kubernetes Alternatives 2023: Top 8 Container Orchestration Tools
Rancher is an open-source container orchestration platform. With it, you can manage production containers across different platforms, including on-premises and the public cloud. As a Platform as a Service, it simplifies container management by allowing access to a set of available open source technologies, rather than having to build platforms from scratch.
Top 12 Kubernetes Alternatives to Choose From in 2023
Rancher also offers integration with popular container runtimes and networking solutions, making it an excellent choice for teams seeking a comprehensive PaaS solution for their Kubernetes deployments.
Source: humalect.com
11 Best Rancher Alternatives Multi Cluster Orchestration Platform
Create a Kubernetes cluster, then link it to Rancher to use Rancher with Kubernetes. Rancher offers a web-based dashboard, an API, tools for deploying and scaling containerized apps and services, and resources for managing and monitoring your cluster.
Docker Alternatives
An open-source code, Rancher is another one among the list of Docker alternatives that is built to provide organizations with everything they need. This software combines the environments required to adopt and run containers in production. A rancher is built on Kubernetes. This tool helps the DevOps team by making it easier to testing, deploying and managing the...
Source: www.educba.com
Heroku vs self-hosted PaaS
All in all I’m intrigued by Rancher but since I am looking for something simple then it is too advanced and resource intensive for my small side projects. I will however look into Rancher a bit more later and try to deploy one of my projects to it. That will probably be a blog post in it’s own!
Source: www.mskog.com

Apache Flink Reviews

We have no reviews of Apache Flink yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Flink should be more popular than Rancher. It has been mentiond 41 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.

Rancher mentions (24)

  • Terraform code for kubernetes on vsphere?
    I don't know in which extend you plan to use Kubernetes in the future, but if it is aimed to become several huge production clusters, you should looks into Apps like Rancher: https://rancher.com. Source: over 2 years ago
  • I want to provide some free support for community, how should I start?
    But I think once you have a good understanding of K8S internal (components, how thing work underlying, etc.), you can use some tool to help you provision / maintain k8s cluster easier (look for https://rancher.com/ and alternatives). Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Don't Use Kubernetes, Yet
    A few years, I would have said no. Now, I'm cautiously optimistic about it. Personally, I think that you can use something like Rancher (https://rancher.com/) or Portainer (https://www.portainer.io/) for easier management and/or dashboard functionality, to make the learning curve a bit more approachable. For example, you can create a deployment through the UI by following a wizard that also offers you... - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
  • Building an Internal Kubernetes Platform
    Alternatively, it is also possible to use a multi-cloud or hybrid-cloud approach, which combines several cloud providers or even public and private clouds. Special tools such as Rancher and OpenShift can be very useful to run this type of system. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
  • Five Dex Alternatives for Kubernetes Authentication
    Rancher provides a Rancher authentication proxy that allows user authentication from a central location. With this proxy, you can set the credential for authenticating users that want to access your Kubernetes clusters. You can create, view, update, or delete users through Rancher’s UI and API. - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
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Apache Flink mentions (41)

  • What is Apache Flink? Exploring Its Open Source Business Model, Funding, and Community
    Continuous Learning: Leverage online tutorials from the official Flink website and attend webinars for deeper insights. - Source: dev.to / 5 days ago
  • Is RisingWave the Next Apache Flink?
    Apache Flink, known initially as Stratosphere, is a distributed stream processing engine initiated by a group of researchers at TU Berlin. Since its initial release in May 2011, Flink has gained immense popularity in both academia and industry. And it is currently the most well-known streaming system globally (challenge me if you think I got it wrong!). - Source: dev.to / 18 days ago
  • Every Database Will Support Iceberg — Here's Why
    Apache Iceberg defines a table format that separates how data is stored from how data is queried. Any engine that implements the Iceberg integration — Spark, Flink, Trino, DuckDB, Snowflake, RisingWave — can read and/or write Iceberg data directly. - Source: dev.to / 23 days ago
  • RisingWave Turns Four: Our Journey Beyond Democratizing Stream Processing
    The last decade saw the rise of open-source frameworks like Apache Flink, Spark Streaming, and Apache Samza. These offered more flexibility but still demanded significant engineering muscle to run effectively at scale. Companies using them often needed specialized stream processing engineers just to manage internal state, tune performance, and handle the day-to-day operational challenges. The barrier to entry... - Source: dev.to / 28 days ago
  • Twitter's 600-Tweet Daily Limit Crisis: Soaring GCP Costs and the Open Source Fix Elon Musk Ignored
    Apache Flink: Flink is a unified streaming and batching platform developed under the Apache Foundation. It provides support for Java API and a SQL interface. Flink boasts a large ecosystem and can seamlessly integrate with various services, including Kafka, Pulsar, HDFS, Iceberg, Hudi, and other systems. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Rancher and Apache Flink, you can also consider the following products

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

Apache Spark - Apache Spark is an engine for big data processing, with built-in modules for streaming, SQL, machine learning and graph processing.

Terraform - Tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently.

Amazon Kinesis - Amazon Kinesis services make it easy to work with real-time streaming data in the AWS cloud.

Puppet Enterprise - Get started with Puppet Enterprise, or upgrade or expand.

Spring Framework - The Spring Framework provides a comprehensive programming and configuration model for modern Java-based enterprise applications - on any kind of deployment platform.