Ask HN: Docker Swarm silently abandoned, what can I do?

[9dev]

For our small startup, I bet on Docker Swarm (mode) after previously being burned by the complexity of maintaining a K8s cluster properly. Swarm was initially a pleasant and logical progression from compose files, but has since bitten us repeatedly: Things that are downright broken, fail inexplicably, or behave differently than documented - if documented at all.

In the various repositories Docker Inc apparently likes to spread its code across, thousands of issues are open - some older than 2015. Maintainers that once commented don't even respond anymore, but seem to work on arbitrary other things. Reading about some kind of WASM runtime in the Docker daemon, or a redesigned Docker Desktop app, add insult to injury.

I have no clue what is going on inside that organisation, and more pressingly, if anyone actually still works on swarm mode. I suspect not, and this is scaring me.

Is there anyone out there in the same boat, or someone that jumped earlier? What did you do, what can we do?

[3np]

Nomad falls square in the middle between Swarm and k8s in terms of operational complexity.

While it's the closest for your use-case I can think of, I still feel it requires more resources to operate properly than what you're looking for: While there's some early functionality for Nomad to do both secrets and services independently, it still seems that you're looking at min 3xnomad servers + 3xconsul servers + 2xvault servers + whatever clients you have to actually run workloads - and make sure you have proper monitoring and alerts for consensus and cert/token rotations.

Another angle to consider would be - do you actually need the dynamic scheduling part? If not, you can simplify things a lot by going to systemd+podman and instrument it all with ansible (or what-have-you). If you want the deployment UX to be more developer-friendly you can host Dokku or something on top of that.

[ndeloof]

Swarm is a Mirantis product now. You just ask the wrong people Read more on https://www.mirantis.com/blog/mirantis-acquires-docker-enter... and "What About Docker Swarm?" section

[9dev → ndeloof]

Yes, I know. But large swaths of swarm functionality live in tooling maintained by Docker Inc., and Docker employees seem to work on bits of code related to Swarm - sometimes. The separation between those entities is completely opaque. If Swarm is a Mirantis product, why does the Docker CLI, maintained by Docker on GitHub, contain code of that product? Who, if not the maintainers of these projects, should be contacted about that code?

Edit: Additionally, if anyone reads this, I actually spoke to Mirantis a while ago. Unless you're ready to pay five to six figures per year for a support contract, there's nothing they can do to alleviate your problems.

If Swarm mode would be deprecated ripped out of the Docker CLI and daemon, moved to a separate project under clear ownership of Mirantis and without any pretense of being "open source" software, it would be a different situation. But the way it is, nobody knows or understands what is happening, and Swarm mode crashes into the wall in slow motion.

[ancieque]

Docker Swarm engine is part of docker-ce. It just got New features last year as well as some quality of life improvements.

Its not shiny but it works. We use it for most of our selfhosted stuff (which is a lot) and our customers.

I host a swarm fans hangout every 2 months over at devops.fan with Bret Fisher. Also we help each other on discord. Join us :)