Software

K3s and MicroK8s both solve the same problem: how to run Kubernetes without needing a datacenter. They trade some flexibility for simplicity — and in most small setups, that’s a good trade. Pick K3s if minimalism and embedded use matter more. Go with MicroK8s if you want something that behaves more like a trimmed-down copy of production clusters. Either way, the install takes minutes — and the learning that follows is the same.

This setup doesn’t feel like a workaround — it’s more like the way containers should’ve always run on Windows. No VMs to babysit, no constant switching between OS contexts. Just one system that runs both sides well enough. It’s not flawless, but once in place, it rarely gets in the way. And that, for most people, is exactly what’s needed.

Podman isn’t trying to reinvent containers. It just strips them down to what actually matters — processes, namespaces, isolation — without hiding what’s going on. No central service. No mandatory root access. No background daemon sitting between the user and the container runtime.

There are times when a full hypervisor stack is overkill. For quick test environments, throwaway lab setups, or legacy system emulation, VirtualBox still proves useful. It’s not modern in the cloud-native sense, and it doesn’t pretend to be. But it runs reliably on most desktops, doesn’t ask for a license, and gets out of the way.