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I Stopped Using Kubernetes. Our DevOps Team Is Happier Than Ever
Why Letting Go of Kubernetes Worked for Us
Six months ago, our DevOps team was drowning in complexity. We were managing 47 Kubernetes clusters across three cloud providers.
Our engineers were working weekends. On-call rotations were dreaded. Then we made a decision that seemed crazy at the time — we started removing Kubernetes from our stack.
Today, our deployment success rate is up by 89%. Infrastructure costs are down 62%. And for the first time in two years, our DevOps team took uninterrupted vacations.
Here’s the story.
The Kubernetes Dream vs. Reality
Like many companies, we jumped on the Kubernetes bandwagon three years ago. The promises were compelling:
- Container orchestration at scale
- Cloud-native architecture
- Infrastructure as code
- Automated scaling and healing
And yes, Kubernetes delivered on these promises. But it came with hidden costs that nobody talked about.
The Breaking Point
Our breaking point came during Black Friday 2023. Despite having:
