As I've been writing these journals and working towards migrating our servers I keep finding that when it comes to orchestration Kubernetes is widely favored over Docker Swarm.

Docker does have the advantage of being a familiar tool, but ...

1. Swarm orchestration is completely different from docker containers
2. Kubernetes seems to have a bigger community than Swarm
3. Kubernetes seems to be used by more big companies in production

The problem with Kubernetes is it's somewhat intimidating to introduce to a small startup. It seems complex and to a large extent it is. At the end of the day we're really just looking to replace our use of Docker Cloud. If we can reduce our monthly server costs that will be a bonus.

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I think I may have found a solution to the complexity issue. There is an open-source project called Rancher. Features include:

• GUI that can be used with orchestration services including both Docker Swarm and Kubernetes.
• Tabs on GUI for volumes, secrets management, certificates, hosts, ect.
• Digital Ocean & AWS integration as host providers.
• Built in access management.
• 100% open-source

It seems like Rancher will provide the GUI aspect that Docker Cloud provided and let us use Kubernetes under the hood, or Swarm if we end up deciding to go with that.

Really impressed with the system so far. Super fast to get started with, assuming you have Docker installed just run:

docker run -d --restart=unless-stopped -p 8080:8080 rancher/server

Once it's running you'll have the GUI up and running at localhost:8080. In a single click you can see a catalog of popular services to deploy in a single click:

This video gives a good run through on setting it up to run Kubernetes services.

Thanks for reading, I'll continue experimenting with Rancher. I definitely want to use that for the GUI but I have to research Kubernetes more. I think it's the better solution than Swarm, the only question is will it be practical to learn and setup given our timeline.