When a Kubernetes Operator Makes Sense

Beyond YAML: Real-World Lessons from Managing Complex Infrastructure

There are plenty of ways to deploy applications onto Kubernetes:

• raw kubectl apply
• Kustomize overlays
• Helm charts
• sidecars and init containers
• and, at the far end of the spectrum, fully-fledged operators

Most teams start at the simple end and stay there. And they should, most applications don’t need anything more complicated than a Deployment, a few ConfigMaps, and a kubectl apply -k.