Uncloud - Tool for deploying containerised apps across servers without k8s

Hey, creator here. Thanks for sharing this!

Uncloud[0] is a container orchestrator without a control plane. Think multi-machine Docker Compose with automatic WireGuard mesh, service discovery, and HTTPS via Caddy. Each machine just keeps a p2p-synced copy of cluster state (using Fly.io's Corrosion), so there's no quorum to maintain.

I’m building Uncloud after years of managing Kubernetes in small envs and at a unicorn. I keep seeing teams reach for K8s when they really just need to run a bunch of containers across a few machines with decent networking, rollouts, and HTTPS. The operational overhead of k8s is brutal for what they actually need.

A few things that make it unique:

- uses the familiar Docker Compose spec, no new DSL to learn

- builds and pushes your Docker images directly to your machines without an external registry (via my other project unregistry [1])

- imperative CLI (like Docker) rather than declarative reconciliation. Easier mental model and debugging

- works across cloud VMs, bare metal, even a Raspberry Pi at home behind NAT (all connected together)

- minimal resource footprint (<150MB ram)

[0]: https://github.com/psviderski/uncloud

[1]: https://github.com/psviderski/unregistry

"I keep seeing teams reach for K8s when they really just need to run a bunch of containers across a few machines"

Since k8s is very effective at running a bunch of containers across a few machines, it would appear to be exactly the correct thing to reach for. At this point, running a small k8s operation, with k3s or similar, has become so easy that I can't find a rational reason to look elsewhere for container "orchestration".