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

Having spent most of my career in kubernetes (usually managed by cloud), I always wonder when I see things like this, what is the use case or benefit of not having a control plane?

To me, the control plane is the primary feature of kubernetes and one I would not want to go without.

I know this describes operational overhead as a reason, but how it relates to the control plane is not clear to me. even managing a few hundred nodes and maybe 10,000 containers, relatively small - I update once a year and the managed cluster updates machine images and versions automatically. Are people trying to self host kubernetes for production cases, and that’s where this pain comes from?

Sorry if it is a rude question.

How does this compare to something like Dokku?

If not K8S, why not Nomad (https://github.com/hashicorp/nomad)?

As a happy user of coolify, what’s the difference between these two?

Even coolify lets you add as many machines as you want and then manage docker containers in all machines from one coolify installation.

Does it support a way to bundle things close to each other, for example, not having a database container hosted in a different datacenter than the web app?

How does this compare to k3s?

This is extremely interesting to me. I've been using docker swarm, but there is this growing feeling of staleness. Dokku feels a bit too light, K8 absolutely too heavy. This proposition strikes my sweet spot - especially the part where I keep my existing docker compose declarations

Looks lovely.. I'll definitely will give it a try when time comes.