How it works
You describe what should run in YAML files (this image, three copies, this much memory, reachable at this address) and Kubernetes keeps reality matching that description. The control plane schedules pods (one or more containers) onto worker machines called nodes, replaces crashed ones, rolls out new versions gradually and scales with load. Services and ingress rules route traffic to the right pods.
It grew out of Google's internal systems and is now looked after by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Most teams use a managed version, such as Amazon EKS, Google GKE or Azure AKS, where the cloud runs the control plane and you pay for the nodes. Helm packages common setups as charts, and small distributions such as k3s, kind and minikube run it on one machine for learning and testing.
Kubernetes pros and cons
Pros
- Self-healing: crashed containers are replaced automatically
- Scales services up and down with traffic
- Rolling updates without downtime, and quick rollbacks
- Runs on every major cloud and on your own servers, which limits lock-in
Cons
- Steep learning curve and a lot of YAML
- Needs ongoing care: upgrades, security, networking and monitoring
- Overkill, and costly, for a handful of services
When to use Kubernetes
Pick it when
- Many services and teams sharing the same infrastructure
- Workloads that must scale automatically and survive machine failures
- You need one platform across several clouds or your own hardware
Skip it when
- A single app or a small team, where a managed platform or one VPS is far simpler
- Nobody on the team has time to run and upgrade it
Kubernetes pricing
Open source
Free (Apache 2.0). Managed control planes cost about $0.10 per cluster an hour on EKS and GKE (GKE covers one cluster free); AKS is free without an uptime SLA. Nodes are billed on top.
Kubernetes pricing page (opens in a new tab)Approximate, checked September 2026.What the other tools cost
Kubernetes vs the alternatives
Related terms
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