K3s

What K3s is

K3s is a free, certified Kubernetes distribution designed for IoT and edge computing. It is self-hosted and comes as a single binary or minimal container image. The site describes the binary as under 70 MB, while the documentation gives a figure under 100 MB. SQLite is the default lightweight datastore, with etcd, MySQL, and Postgres also available. K3s packages components including containerd or cri-dockerd, Flannel, CoreDNS, Traefik, ServiceLB, Kube-router, local-path-provisioner, and Spegel. Documented uses include edge deployments, homelabs, IoT, continuous integration, development, ARM single-board computers, air-gapped environments, and embedded Kubernetes. High availability can use an embedded datastore or external MySQL, PostgreSQL, or etcd. Air-gapped installation guidance covers private registries, manually deployed images, and the embedded registry mirror. Security materials include hardening guidance and CIS benchmark self-assessment guides that assume embedded etcd. Upgrade documentation describes Kubernetes-native automated upgrades through Rancher's system-upgrade-controller. Releases are listed for x86_64, ARMv7, and ARM64. K3s does not natively support Windows.