---
title: "Why managed Kubernetes"
description: "Why managed Kubernetes vs self-hosted or serverless solutions"
date: 2021-02-23
author: "Hans Berndl"
url: https://www.exoscale.com/blog/why-managed-kubernetes/
---
# Why managed Kubernetes

This is part 2 of our series 
[explaining Kubernetes](https://www.exoscale.com/blog/explain-kubernetes-and-container-orchestration/)
and the various choices for your application workload.

Utilizing containers and Kubernetes in your solution stack is excellent and delivers on
the app promises and fulfills your users' expectations. 

Sounds perfect. It is.

Kind of, because it introduces a lot (and I mean a lot) of complexities on the
path to users-app-happiness.

![kubernetes ecosystem choices](https://www.exoscale.com/blog/why-managed-kubernetes/k8s-ecosystem.png)

Running the container orchestration part, requires the right skill set for each
of the involved components. Kubernetes like all container orchestration platforms
comes with great benefits but also with quite a few challenges: multiple
components, a distributed database, an API server, masters, network layers,...

If you have the skills in-house and deploy them to these challenges, it's ok.
Considering that these services are available, someone else would free your
skilled personnel for other maybe more business-relevant tasks. Running your
"own" data centre is not a competitive advantage anymore, so is the same
running your own Kubernetes clusters.

## Responsibilities

Therefore, considering experts running these infrastructures components for you,
might be a wise move. Breaking down the problem into operations responsibilities
is an excellent approach to selecting the right level of managed services for
your environment.

![selfhosted Kubernetes vs managed kubernetes vs serverless](https://www.exoscale.com/blog/why-managed-kubernetes/k8s-serverless.png)

## Kubernetes vs Managed Kubernetes vs Serverless

Running vanilla Kubernetes includes several tasks: installation, administration,
backup, scaling, provisioning resources, configuring applications and last but
not least app deployment. You get full flexibility for your OS, container and
software choices, no provider lock-ins, lowest price possible, but wait before
you want to jump on this wagon right now, the effort hidden in the enumeration
of tasks above shouldn't be underestimated.

The other extreme position is going full-in with Serverless; only responsibility
is to deploy your apps. Still, you buy with this approach the luxury of little
effort and no flexibility policy. The price tag is quite hefty. Not all
workloads, aka apps, can be run in such a setting is another downturn.

Looking at the Golden Mean - as often in life - is worth more than one look, so
let's see what makes Managed Kubernetes so attractive. The burden of installation,
administration, backup, scaling, and provisioning resources are taken from you.
Controlling configuration and deployment give you the right amount of
flexibility to align business requirements with IT responsibilities. The Golden
Mean (Managed Kubernetes) is because of the balanced relationship between price and
customer effort put in a real overall benefit and runs all workloads with no
restriction.

The next step is to choose your level of "Managed" Kubernetes Service, and 
Exoscale provides several alternatives from [Scalable Kubernetes Service](https://www.exoscale.com/sks) to turn key solution with our Marketplace.