What is the difference between Docker and Kubernetes

Docker

Docker is a platform for building, packaging, and running applications in containers. Containers bundle code with dependencies, ensuring consistency across environments. Docker focuses on a single host and its local container lifecycle.

docker build -t myapp .
docker run -p 8080:8080 myapp

Kubernetes

Kubernetes is a container orchestrator that manages containers across a cluster of machines. It handles scheduling, scaling, networking, storage, and self-healing. Kubernetes runs containers, often created by Docker, at scale.

apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  name: myapp
spec:
  containers:
    - name: app
      image: myapp:latest

Relationship

Think of Docker as the package format and runtime, and Kubernetes as the datacenter operating system that manages thousands of those packages. You can use Kubernetes with other container runtimes like containerd or CRI-O.

To get started with images, see how to build a Docker image. For local multi-container setups, how to use Docker Compose is useful before moving to Kubernetes.