Features

Everything you need for production Kubernetes, in a single <70MB binary.

Core Capabilities

Single Binary

All Kubernetes components, container runtime, and utilities are packaged into a single &lt;70MB binary.

SQLite / etcd3

Default to SQLite for low-overhead control plane; switch to etcd3 for HA production clusters.

Containerd Built-in

containerd is the default runtime — no need to install Docker or configure CRI separately.

Traefik Ingress

Traefik is included by default for ingress and load balancing, ready out of the box.

Local Storage

Local-path-provisioner shipped for persistent volumes on bare-metal or single-node clusters.

ARM Support

First-class support for ARM64 and ARMv7 — runs on Raspberry Pi to AWS Graviton servers.

Auto-Update

Built-in mechanism to upgrade nodes safely using the system-upgrade controller.

Helm Controller

Manage Helm charts directly through K3s without separate Helm installation.

Architecture Highlights

Production-Grade HA

K3s server nodes run an embedded SQLite database by default for simplicity, with optional etcd3 for HA deployments. A minimum HA cluster requires 3 server nodes for proper quorum.

Security by Default

Encrypted communication between control plane components, secure default network policies, and integration with CIS hardening profiles out of the box.

Lightweight Footprint

K3s uses ~512MB of RAM at minimum, ideal for IoT devices, edge gateways, and CI runners. On a Raspberry Pi 4, a full K3s cluster runs comfortably with 1GB RAM.

Compare Footprint

K3s    —  ~512 MB RAM    single 70 MB binary
K8s    —  ~2  GB RAM    multiple daemons, complex setup
MicroK8s — ~1 GB RAM    snap-installed, Ubuntu-only

What's Removed (vs upstream K8s)

  • Legacy in-tree cloud providers (replaced by out-of-tree CSI/CNI/CM)
  • Non-essential alpha features still in beta
  • Built-in DNS plugin choice (CoreDNS only)
  • Docker shim (uses containerd directly via CRI)

Ecosystem Integrations

Edge & IoT

Optimized for low-resource devices. Combine with K3OS for an immutable OS, or with KubeEdge for cloud-edge collaboration.

CI / Build

Lightweight enough to run a full Kubernetes cluster inside a CI runner — already used by Gitea, Drone, and Jenkins X.

Multi-Cloud

Runs on AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle Cloud, and bare-metal. No vendor lock-in — bring your own infrastructure.

Ready to Try K3s?

Install in under 30 seconds:
curl -sfL https://get.k3s.io | sh -
sudo k3s kubectl get node

→ See full installation guide