K3s Cluster
k3s is a lightweight, CNCF-certified Kubernetes distribution built by Rancher/SUSE that packages the control plane and its dependencies into a single small binary. It targets resource-constrained environments such as edge, IoT, and CI use cases where running full upstream Kubernetes is impractical.
Baseline topologies
| Topology | Minimum nodes | Roles |
|---|---|---|
| single-server | 1 | k3s-server |
| ha-control-plane-plus-agents | 4 | k3s-server, k3s-agent |
What drives the cost
- Server nodes
- Number of K3s server nodes. Use an odd count for embedded etcd quorum; use 1 for very small or development clusters.
- Agent nodes
- Number of K3s agent nodes dedicated to running workloads.
- Planned pods per agent node
- Planned steady-state pod density on each agent node. Drives agent node memory and CPU sizing.
Where it runs
bare_metal, dedicated, cloud_vm
Size K3s Cluster and get a cost estimate