{"slug": "k3s", "name": "k3s", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 10, "warners": 0, "score": 4.607, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2026-02-16", "latest": "2026-10-23", "why": "I use k3s for my home network because it's simple and easy", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 7, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I use k3s for my home network because it's simple and easy", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://k3s.io", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["k3s", "K3s"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 777335298, "item_id": 48583456, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48583456", "by": "spacemule", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "on a small k3s cluster on my desk. You could do the same even with a single node cluster.", "excerpt": "I use webhooks to argo events that trigger argo workflows on a small k3s cluster on my desk. You could do the same even with a single node cluster.", "context": "", "use_case": "small Kubernetes cluster", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Looking for a CI/CD project for my local lab"}, {"id": 766201217, "item_id": 47887576, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47887576", "by": "irusensei", "date": "2026-04-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "there are products like k3s that are very simple to use", "excerpt": "I use kubernetes extensively at work. I don't manage the kubernetes cluster anymore since now we have a team that runs centralized services and you can request a namespace with a quota. But back when my team had a dedicated Azure Kubernetes cluster it was not that bad as people says it is and the biggest hassle was the extremely short lived support for each version. Then I started to realize most people who complain ", "context": "", "use_case": "self-managed Kubernetes", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Am Building a Cloud"}, {"id": 752628817, "item_id": 47039301, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47039301", "by": "himata4113", "date": "2026-02-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use k3s for my home network because it's simple and easy", "excerpt": "Kubernetes solves real problems for the 1% who need it. The other 99% are paying a massive complexity tax for capabilities they never use, while 87% of their provisioned CPU sits idle. is where the author is just wrong: - abstracts away ssh - makes it pretty unnecessary - rbac multi tenancy - better automations - orchestating more than one cluster - better infra as code - provisions are as good as you make them, if y", "context": "runs home network", "use_case": "home network orchestration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Swarm vs. Kubernetes in 2026"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "bengalister", "context": "homelab self-hoster, works with Kubernetes", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50114968", "date": "2026-10-16"}, {"by": "himata4113", "context": "runs home network", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47039301", "date": "2026-02-16"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["agent sandbox", "home kubernetes cluster", "running apps", "kubernetes on microvms", "small kubernetes cluster", "orchestrating local inference services"], "compared": [{"slug": "docker-compose", "name": "Docker Compose", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "forgejo", "name": "Forgejo", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "kubernetes", "name": "Kubernetes", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50198675", "title": "OpenShell \u2013 A safe, private runtime for fleets of autonomous AI agents", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50109715", "title": "What I self-host", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49604837", "title": "Vagrant is approaching EOL. No more \"Docker for VMs\"", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48642510", "title": "Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48583441", "title": "Ask HN: Looking for a CI/CD project for my local lab", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48528779", "title": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 2, "recommend": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 2}}, "quotes": [{"id": 803341185, "item_id": 50208824, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50208824", "by": "Roark66", "date": "2026-10-23", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "a proper sandbox (actually 2 security tiers there) setup in a k3s namespace", "excerpt": "Well, I have been using a two tier strategy. For well behaved models I've used the pi plugin I wrote (functionality somewhat based on Claude Code's auto but IMHO much better - https://github.com/lukolszewski/adaptive-acl). And I'm perfectly happy telling the model \"you're allowed to commit to feature branches and open PRs\", \"you're allowed to read path /x/y/z\", \"don't make any changes in /a/b/c\" and my plugin will en", "context": "", "use_case": "agent sandbox", "switched_from": "", "story": "OpenShell \u2013 A safe, private runtime for fleets of autonomous AI agents"}, {"id": 801839490, "item_id": 50114968, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50114968", "by": "bengalister", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "The kubernetes cluster is k3s", "excerpt": "I also self host some services: keycloak, forgejo, home assistant, immich, grafana/prometheus, jellyfin, pureftp (to store my surveillance cameras videos), and a vibecoded financial app, and soon hermes agent on a 2023 laptop. I chose to run most of them on Kubernetes since I am used to work with it. I use: - ha-proxy running on the host and istio running inside the cluster for the sni based ingress routing - cert-ma", "context": "homelab self-hoster, works with Kubernetes", "use_case": "home Kubernetes cluster", "switched_from": "", "story": "What I self-host"}, {"id": 794202787, "item_id": 49637674, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49637674", "by": "bithavoc", "date": "2026-09-10", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Vagrant for VM provisioning and  K3S for the rest.", "excerpt": "I think I understand why, I used Vagrant for many years and this was my evolution: * Vagrant for everything: VM provisioning(always local), os dependencies, app dependencies and the apps themselves was all Vagrant. * Vagrant for VM provisioning and OS dependencies only. docker-compose for the rest * Vagrant for VM provisioning, Rancher 1.6-ish for the rest * Vagrant for VM provisioning and K3S for the rest. * either ", "context": "", "use_case": "running apps", "switched_from": "Rancher", "story": "Vagrant is approaching EOL. No more \"Docker for VMs\""}, {"id": 779138401, "item_id": 48696150, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48696150", "by": "pugz", "date": "2026-06-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I managed to get Kubernetes (k3s) running across a cluster of MicroVMs.", "excerpt": "I've been kicking the tyres on this. I managed to get Kubernetes (k3s) running across a cluster of MicroVMs. Useful? No. Funny? To me, yes. https://github.com/aidansteele/microvm-fun", "context": "", "use_case": "Kubernetes on MicroVMs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs"}, {"id": 777335298, "item_id": 48583456, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48583456", "by": "spacemule", "date": "2026-06-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "on a small k3s cluster on my desk. You could do the same even with a single node cluster.", "excerpt": "I use webhooks to argo events that trigger argo workflows on a small k3s cluster on my desk. You could do the same even with a single node cluster.", "context": "", "use_case": "small Kubernetes cluster", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Looking for a CI/CD project for my local lab"}, {"id": 776504145, "item_id": 48531509, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48531509", "by": "misterbrian", "date": "2026-06-14", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "moved all of my local inference services to k3s across 3 RTX 4090 PCs and my DGX Spark", "excerpt": "I'm working on inference.club, a distributed inference network for consumer hardware. Sign up with GitHub, get an API key, run an agent on your home network that registers your local inference resources with inference.club, set permissions for who can use your services, try out models in the playground and use the API. So far it supports the following models: - LLMs (any OpenAI compatible API, vLLM, LM Studio, etc.) ", "context": "", "use_case": "orchestrating local inference services", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 766201217, "item_id": 47887576, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47887576", "by": "irusensei", "date": "2026-04-24", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "there are products like k3s that are very simple to use", "excerpt": "I use kubernetes extensively at work. I don't manage the kubernetes cluster anymore since now we have a team that runs centralized services and you can request a namespace with a quota. But back when my team had a dedicated Azure Kubernetes cluster it was not that bad as people says it is and the biggest hassle was the extremely short lived support for each version. Then I started to realize most people who complain ", "context": "", "use_case": "self-managed Kubernetes", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Am Building a Cloud"}, {"id": 756898049, "item_id": 47306128, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47306128", "by": "functional_dev", "date": "2026-03-09", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Stack is 15+ Go microservices on k3s.", "excerpt": "Building a cheaper alternative to Twilio Voice Intelligence. Record phone calls, transcribe, generate AI summaries, enable semantic search over transcripts \u2014 $0.30/hour vs Twilio's $1.50/hour. Stack is 15+ Go microservices on k3s. Cross-lingual semantic search is fun. Spanish query returns English calls with no translation code. https://audiotext.live/", "context": "", "use_case": "running microservices", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (March 2026)"}, {"id": 754248786, "item_id": 47140549, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140549", "by": "sprior", "date": "2026-02-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Now all of this is running deployed in k3s.", "excerpt": "I started using Prolog in my self written home automation system over 20 years ago. At first I was using CORBA and I linked ACE/Tao into SWI-Prolog so that Prolog could catch and send CORBA messages. That worked for years but was too annoying to add new message types since a wrapper had to be written for each, plus threading had to be coordinated between C++ and Prolog. Eventually I ditched the CORBA stuff and switch", "context": "", "use_case": "deploying home automation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Extending C with Prolog (1994)"}, {"id": 752628817, "item_id": 47039301, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47039301", "by": "himata4113", "date": "2026-02-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use k3s for my home network because it's simple and easy", "excerpt": "Kubernetes solves real problems for the 1% who need it. The other 99% are paying a massive complexity tax for capabilities they never use, while 87% of their provisioned CPU sits idle. is where the author is just wrong: - abstracts away ssh - makes it pretty unnecessary - rbac multi tenancy - better automations - orchestating more than one cluster - better infra as code - provisions are as good as you make them, if y", "context": "runs home network", "use_case": "home network orchestration", "switched_from": "", "story": "Docker Swarm vs. Kubernetes in 2026"}]}