Lots of projects claim to be the “smallest” or “simplest” Kubernetes, but they never provide data to back it up. Let’s look at how these distributions compare to Talos Linux. Note that Talos Linux is not a Kubernetes distribution, but rather a Linux distribution purpose-built for running upstream Kubernetes. Before we look at the data, […]
I find this comparison unfair becuase k3s is a much more batteries included distro than the others, coming with an ingress controller (traefik) and a few other services not in talos or k0s.
But I do think Talos will end up the lighest overall because Talos is not just a k8s distro, but also a extremely stripped down linux distro. They don’t use systemd to start k8s, they have their own tiny init system.
It should be noted that Sidero Labs is the creator of Talos Linux, which another commenter pointed out.