Nomad vs. Kubernetes

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With the widening of the container orchestration arena, different platforms have entered the market, and the competition has become stiff. As businesses explore containerization’s benefits, they seek container orchestration and management solutions. These platforms help automate container operations, reducing efforts and associated complexities. Also, they boost resilience and offer security, reducing the chances of errors.

Nomad and Kubernetes are the top players in the market, offering the best container orchestration solutions. If you want to decide which one will be the best for your business, here is a detailed comparison between these platforms.

See more: Top Container Orchestration Software

Nomad vs. Kubernetes: Portfolio

Nomad by Hashicorp has explicitly been designed for businesses seeking simple and flexible container scheduling, management, and orchestration solutions. The core strength of this platform is its ease of use. Using a single, unified workflow, businesses can deploy and manage both containerized and non-containerized applications. It offers immense flexibility as businesses can tailor installations as per specific project needs. Besides, it has a pretty simple architecture and operator-friendly design. It can also handle application, node, and driver failures automatically. With many improved features, it is tough competition for already established orchestrators.

Nomad uses pluggable task drivers like Docker, Firecracker, Podman, etc. As a result, it can run different applications in different environments quickly. Nomad can combine resource management and scheduling as it is self-contained and runs as a single binary. It is also capable of storage and coordination and does not rely on external services for these functions. 

Kubernetes or K8s is an open-source container orchestration platform built upon Google’s years of production workloads running experience. It is the top choice for container services, offering improved integration with leading cloud providers. It is also included in the IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS) service packages, and other top cloud platforms. Kubernetes is based on the same principle, allowing Google to run billions of containers per week. Businesses can effortlessly move workloads to any IT infrastructure, be it public cloud, on-prem, or hybrid cloud environments with K8s. 

Kubernetes is a growing ecosystem of advanced deployment solutions. It simultaneously monitors the application’s health while rolling out changes. In case of any problems encountered, it can also roll back the particular changes. Based on the resource requirements of the containers, it offers automatic bin packing but does not sacrifice availability. It saves more resources and maximizes utilization by mixing critical and best-effort workloads. Kubernetes also possesses self-healing capacity as it restarts failed containers, replaces and reschedules dead nodes, and kills containers that are unhealthy for the system. It enjoys a strong community effort and can quickly adapt to business needs. 

Nomad vs. Kubernetes: Partners

For a verified and seamless user experience, there is an exclusive HashiCorp Nomad Integration Program. There are Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) partners, Monitoring partners, Storage partners, Networking partners, Autoscaling partners, Container Runtime partners, etc., that integrate with Nomad. It has technology partners like IONOS, 1 Password, A10 Networks, Alkira Networks, Ambassador Labs, Arista Networks, and many leading enterprises that help deliver reliable and smart solutions. Nomad’s major cloud partners are AWS, Alibaba Cloud, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle. Other partners that help Nomad with system integration include Accenture, Ashnik, Atos, Capgemini, Cloud Comrade, etc. 

Kubernetes also has partners that help provide services and training and ensure certified distributions. Kubernetes Certified Service Providers (KCSPs) help businesses successfully adopt different services. Some of the top KCSP partners are Appstellar, ATIX, BC Cloud, Catalyst Cloud, Cloud Kinetics, Deloitte, IBM, SAP, VMware, etc. 

There are also conformance partners that help with certified Kubernetes distributions. Some of them are Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service Distro, ASUS Cloud Infra, desktop Kubernetes, Ericsson Cloud COntainer Distribution, Orka, KubeKey, Magnum, etc. Kubernetes Training Partners (KTP) help in providing cloud native technology training. Some leading KTPs are Container Solutions, Entigo, Inovex, Mirantis, Shinesoft, SoKube, etc. 

Nomad vs. Kubernetes: Use Cases

Nomad has many use cases. The significant ones are Docker Container Orchestration, Legacy Application Deployment, Microservices, Batch Processing Workloads, and Multi-Region and Multi-Cloud Federated Deployments.

As Docker-centric workflow has become extremely popular, Nomad helps businesses with seamless Consul and Vault integration. It also improves operational flexibility considerably. Nomad offers legacy applications at reduced costs for organizations that cannot adopt a Docker-based deployment strategy. It also provides solutions for efficient Microservices management. Nomad can help deploy thousands of containers per second with minimal operational overhead. Being a cloud-agnostic platform, it can natively handle multi-datacenter and multi-region deployments. As a result, incremental migration of workload becomes easier. 

Kubernetes’ core use cases are microservices management, heavy computing, machine learning (ML) techniques,  deployment of simple apps, and cloud-native functions (CNF). Instead of employing separate hosts for app deployment, one can easily use dedicated K8s clusters at much lower costs. It also helps in the better allocation of resources. 

Kubernetes can identify the problem within the architecture for microservice management and automatically scale up or down resources based on the requirements. It also simplifies heavy computing tasks through clusters.

See more: How Container Orchestration is Used by UPS, Vanguard, Pearson, KOHLER, Bandwidth, and Complevo: Case Studies

Nomad vs. Kubernetes: User Reviews

Nomad has a 4.1-star rating at G2. Users consider it one of the best deployment tools for implementation. It is light and flexible, and the installation process is also easy. Some reviewers have also appreciated its universality. 

On the same platform, Kubernetes has a rating of 4.5 stars. Reviewers are convinced about its easy-to-manage infrastructure and user-friendly interaction. It offers excellent performance at the production level and fast CI/CD services. It also has many features that make it easier for businesses to manage their container applications.

At TrustRadius, Nomad has a score of 8.7. Users feel it can be implemented quickly as it follows the Linux philosophy. It can efficiently tackle cloud computing issues. It also helps in convenient job scheduling and quick deployments.

Kubernetes has an 8.9 score at TrustRadius, and some reviewers feel it is the best container orchestration platform. It helps organizations with effective workload management and deployment configuration. As per the users, one of the best features of Kubernetes is its auto-repair mechanism that allows self-heal container applications. 

As per Gartner Peer Insights, Nomad has a 4.4-star rating. Users appreciate its multicloud services and flexibility in managing containerized and non-containerized applications. It can build highly scalable clusters and run stateful workloads without any complexities.

Kubernetes has a 4.6-star rating at Gartner Peer Insights. As per reviewers, it is a one-stop solution for cloud deployment. The K8s orchestration engine also easily creates and deploys clusters and has helped businesses drive revenue growth. It also has a strong user community that helps with product functionality and performance. Kubernetes also has a strong customer focus.

However, some users have expressed that they face issues with Nomad integration, and the initial setup is also complex. It can also include an auto-scaling functionality. Some users feel that implementing a functional and reliable system for an organization with Nomad requires expertise and vision. Besides, adequate training and practice are necessary to operate K8s deployments. Some also feel that application designing using this technology gets quite complex.

Nomad vs. Kubernetes: Recognition

The most recognized achievement of Nomad is The two Million Container Challenge. According to the C2M results, Nomad could run two million containers in 22 minutes and 14 seconds. Thus, it could run about 1,500 containers in one second. Nomad has around 35 technology integrations and 15 task drivers for various applications. 

Kubernetes was also recognized at the Open Source Awards at OSCON 2018 with the Most impactful Award. There are about 824 CNCF members associated with the platform, and it has over a hundred certified distributors and partners.

Nomad vs. Kubernetes: Overall

Both Nomad and Kubernetes are excellent solutions for container orchestration and management. Nomad has a simpler architecture and supports virtualized, containerized, and stand-alone applications compared to Kubernetes.

Kubernetes is an integrated ecosystem composed of powerful components that help container deployment, management, and scaling. It focuses specifically on Linux containers. It has already established itself in the market and has become a popular choice for organizations. Nomad is still emerging, and with its pace of progress, it has proved to be a good competitor to Kubernetes. 

You can choose either of the services based on your business requirements as both are competent enough and can help your organization with its breadth of services.

See more: 5 Top Container Orchestration Trends