Use Cases: When (and When Not) to Use Kubernetes 🧭
Use Cases: When (and When Not) to Use Kubernetes 🧭 관련
Kubernetes is an incredibly powerful tool – but it’s not always the right solution from day one.
Let’s break down when it makes sense to use Kubernetes and when it might be overkill 👇
✅ When You Should Use Kubernetes
Kubernetes becomes essential in these scenarios:
1. Your Application Is Made of Many Microservices
If your app is broken down into multiple microservices – like user authentication, payments, orders, notifications, and more – it’s a good sign that Kubernetes might eventually help.
Kubernetes can:
- Help manage each microservice independently
- Automatically scale each one based on demand
- Restart failed services automatically
- Make it easier to roll out updates to specific parts of the application
2. You’re Getting Steady and High Traffic
It’s not just about complexity – it’s about demand.
If your app receives a consistent, high volume of users (like hundreds or thousands every day), and you start seeing signs that your servers are getting overloaded, Kubernetes shines here. It can:
- Automatically increase resources when traffic surges
- Balance the load across multiple servers
- Prevent downtime due to traffic spikes
3. You Want Portability and Cloud Independence
If your business doesn’t want to be locked into just one cloud provider (for example, only AWS), Kubernetes gives you flexibility. You can move your application between AWS, GCP, Azure – or even to your own data center – with fewer changes.
4. Your DevOps Team Is Growing
When you have multiple developers or teams working on different parts of the app, Kubernetes helps:
- Organize and isolate workloads per team
- Improve collaboration and consistency
- Provide easy access control and monitoring
❌ When You Should Not Use Kubernetes
Let’s be honest: Kubernetes is not for everyone, especially not at the beginning.
1. You Just Launched Your App
In the early days of your product, when you’ve just launched and traffic is still low, Kubernetes is overkill. You don’t need its complexity (yet).
👉 Instead, deploy your app or each microservice on a simple virtual machine (VM). It’s cheaper and faster to get started.
2. You Don’t Need Auto-scaling (Yet)
If traffic to your app is still small and manageable, a single server (or a few of them) can easily handle the load. In that case, it’s better to:
- Deploy your microservices manually or with Docker Compose
- Monitor and scale manually when needed
- Keep things simple until the need for automation becomes obvious
3. You Don’t Have a DevOps Team
Kubernetes is powerful – but it needs expertise to set up and maintain. If you don’t have a DevOps engineer or someone who understands Kubernetes, it may cause more problems than it solves.
Hiring a DevOps team can be expensive, and setting up Kubernetes incorrectly can lead to outages, security risks, or wasted resources 💸
📈 When to Move to Kubernetes
So, what’s the best path forward?
Here’s a simple roadmap:
- Start small: Deploy your app (or microservices) on one or a few VMs
- Watch traffic: As user demand grows, increase VM size or replicate the app manually
- Track pain points: If scaling becomes too manual, or if services crash under load...
- Then adopt Kubernetes 🧠
It’s not about how complex your app is – it’s about when the traffic and growth demand an upgrade in how you manage things.
🎯 TL;DR for Founders and DevOps Teams
- Don’t jump to Kubernetes just because it’s trendy
- Use it only when traffic grows steadily and auto-scaling becomes necessary
- Kubernetes is most valuable when you want to scale reliably and efficiently
- Before that point, stick to simple deployments – it’ll save you time, money, and stress