All the solutions listed below share a common character: they generate kubernetes manifests as yaml files. In other words, they are all compile-to-yaml tools.
Kustomize creates a domain specific language (DSL) based on YAML, and calls it Kustomization. A kustomization (file) describes how to generate or transform other Kubernetes Resource Model objects. Everything in Kustomize is a transformer. The most commonly used transformer is patch.
With Kustomize, sometimes hacks are necessary to work around the limit of existing transformers. In addition, since a kustomization file references other YMAL resources or kustomization files, and each of them could be patched elsewhere, the final result is actually determined by a transformer tree. In real world complex kustomization file, we found it hard to comprehend and maintain.
Instead of creating a DSL, KubeScript utilizes TypeScript to do the same job. TypeScript is more expressive and more extendable than the Kustomization DSL. In addition, we follow functional programming design in KubeScript, making KubeScript code easy to read and understand. Furthermore, TypeScript has been proved to be good at programming-in-the-large.
cdk8s is a software development framework for defining Kubernetes applications and reusable abstractions using familiar programming languages.
At the time of writing, it supports TypeScript, Python, Java and Go. cdk8s apps are structured as a tree of constructs.
Compared to cdk8s (TypeScript), KubeScript is more lightweight, and easier to use.
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cdk8s uses constructs as the building blocks, and manages depedencies upon them. KubeScript does not reinvent the wheels here, and uses TypeScript modules to represent resources. Resource dependencies are then equivalent to module dependencies, that are handled by Deno natively without effort.
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cdk8s runs on Node.js thus requires a package manager eg. npm. To generate YMAL manifests, multpile commands have to be run, as we can see on one official example of cdk8s. On the other hand, with KubeScript only one command like
ks example/websuffices.yarn gen yarn install -L yarn build yarn synth
Grafana Tanka is a robust configuration utility for Kubernetes cluster, powered by the Jsonnet language.
Jsonnet is less well-known and less expressive than TypeScript.
KusionStack is a highly flexible programmable technology stack to enable unified application delivery and operation. It aims to help enterprises build an application-centric configuration management plane and DevOps ecosystem.
KusionStack uses the KCL (Kusion Configuration Language) for configuration, but KCL is still an early-stage language.
KubeVela is a modern software delivery platform that makes deploying and operating applications across today's hybrid, multi-cloud environments easier, faster and more reliable.
KubeVela is built on the Open Application Model, or OAM for short. OAM brings modular, extensible, and portable design for modeling application deployment with higher level yet consistent API.
OAM is well thought and designed, and there is even a spec of it. However, a spec could not cover all use cases, so it comes with an addon mechanism.
As a reference implementation of OAM, KubeVela includes some addons for common functionalities. But in a real world project, even a minor difference of the requirements would make an addon unsuitable. Thus addons must be customized or created. Unfortunately, the cost of making your own addon is high.
On the other hand, KubeScript's reusable constructs are just TypeScript functions or objects, it's easy to customize them for your needs.
Acorn is an application packaging and deployment framework that simplifies running apps on Kubernetes. Acorn is able to package up all of an application's Docker images, configuration, and deployment specifications into a single Acorn image artifact. This artifact is publishable to any OCI container registry allowing it to be deployed on any dev, test, or production Kubernetes. The portability of Acorn images enables developers to develop applications locally and move to production without having to switch tools or technology stacks.
Acorn is a layer of abstraction on top of Kubernetes. Acorn users do not work with Kubernetes YAML files directly. By design, no Kubernetes knowledge is needed to use Acorn.
We hope Acorn will simplify packaging and deployment of applications on Kubernetes.
The quote above summarizes Acorn very well. Hiding the complexity of Kubernetes by a layer of abstraction is good for basic use cases. But when building realworld complex services or apps, you also lose the flexibility and power of Kubernetes manifests.
KubeScript does not hide Kubernetes manifests, instead it tries to make working with it a charm.