{"id":629,"date":"2025-04-01T15:07:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T15:07:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.ngocha.biz\/?p=629"},"modified":"2025-04-01T15:07:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T15:07:37","slug":"why-companies-are-leaving-kubernetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.ngocha.biz\/?p=629","title":{"rendered":"Why Companies Are Leaving Kubernetes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to running applications today, Kubernetes<\/a> is becoming the gold standard.<\/p>\n

However, in recent times, several companies have chosen to move away from Kubernetes due to its complexity and the challenges it presents.<\/p>\n

In this blog, I want to share three such stories <\/strong>and their learnings. Learning from others’ experiences is a great way to avoid huge mistakes in infrastructure management.<\/p>\n

Looking at such learnings<\/strong> can help you make better design choices<\/strong> when working with Kubernetes.<\/p>\n

1. Gitpod Story<\/h2>\n

Gitpod is a cloud-based development environment that provides pre-configured, ready-to-code workspaces for developers. It allows users to spin up a development environment in seconds.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gitpod started with Kubernetes<\/strong> as the backbone for their cloud-based development environments.<\/p>\n

Like many others, they believed Kubernetes\u2019 scalability, automation, and <\/strong>orchestration<\/strong><\/a> would be perfect for handling thousands of development environments daily.<\/p>\n

But as they grew, they ran into unexpected challenges. They struggled with the unique needs of development environments<\/strong>, which are highly stateful and interactive.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where things started to break:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. CPU Bursts<\/strong> \u2013 Developers need instant processing power, but Kubernetes scheduling wasn\u2019t fast enough, causing frustrating delays.<\/li>\n
  2. Memory Management<\/strong> \u2013 RAM is expensive, so they tried overbooking it (k8s allows it through requests and limits. But without proper swap space, Kubernetes would just kill processes when memory ran out. – OOM (Out of Memory) Killer.<\/li>\n
  3. Storage Performance<\/strong> \u2013 Fast SSDs improved performance, but they were tied to specific nodes. Persistent storage (PVCs) should have helped, but it was slow and unreliable.<\/li>\n
  4. Security & Isolation<\/strong> \u2013 Developers needed root-like access to install packages and configure their environments, but that clashed with Kubernetes strict security model.<\/li>\n
  5. Networking Complexity<\/strong> \u2013 Each environment had to be isolated for security, but also needed flexible access for developers.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So they built Gitpod Flex<\/strong>, a Kubernetes-inspired but simplified control plane.<\/p>\n

    It solves most issues by,<\/p>\n