DevOps & Infra Orchestration stable
K3s
Lightweight Kubernetes for edge and IoT
29.0K stars
300 contributors
Since 2020
Lightweight Kubernetes for edge and IoT
License
Apache-2.0
Min RAM
512 MB
Min CPUs
1 core
Scaling
distributed
Complexity
intermediate
Performance
medium
Self-hostable
✓
K8s native
✓
Offline
✕
Pricing
fully free
Docs quality
good
Vendor lock-in
none
Use cases
- ✓ Primary: edge-kubernetes
- ✓ Primary: resource-constrained-clusters
- ✓ Primary: development-clusters
Anti-patterns / when NOT to use
- ✕ Not all K8s features available
- ✕ SQLite backend has limitations
- ✕ Less community tooling than full K8s
Compare with alternatives
Replaces / alternatives to
Technical specs
Language
Go
API type
REST
Protocols
HTTP
Deployment
dockerbinary
Community
GitHub stars 29.0K
Contributors 300
Commit frequency weekly
Plugin ecosystem none
Backing SUSE / Rancher
Funding corporate
Release
Latest version
— Last release —
Since 2020
Best fit
Team size
solosmallmedium
Industries
general