Incus vs. Kubernetes: Why Simplicity Wins

The cloud-native landscape is at an inflection point. While Kubernetes and microservices once dominated the conversation, a growing chorus of organizations is sounding the alarm: complexity doesn’t scale. As experienced system administrators, we’ve watched clients wrestle with Kubernetes’ operational overhead, skyrocketing costs, and the “microservices hangover.” Now, a pragmatic shift is underway, toward solutions that prioritize simplicity, cost efficiency, and cloud-agnostic flexibility. That’s where Incus/LXD and ZFS are stepping into the spotlight.

The Kubernetes Crossroads: When Complexity Becomes the Cost of Doing Business

Kubernetes isn’t going away. For hyperscale applications requiring extreme resilience, global distribution, or complex service meshes, it remains a powerhouse. But for many organizations, the reality has been sobering:

• Operational Overhead: Kubernetes demands specialized skills, dedicated SRE teams, and hours spent troubleshooting distributed systems. Networking, observability, and security add layers of complexity that slow development and inflate budgets.
• Resource Drain: Control planes, node overhead, and over-provisioning for peak loads consume infrastructure budgets. Managed Kubernetes services from major clouds often come with premium pricing that strains ROI.
• The Microservices Mirage: Companies that adopted microservices for agility often ended up with “distributed monoliths”, tightly coupled services that eroded development velocity and introduced data consistency headaches.

The result? A recalibration toward simplicity. Teams are rediscovering the value of well-architected modular monoliths: single, cohesive applications that balance separation of concerns with operational ease. But how do you deploy these without sacrificing the isolation, scalability, and reproducibility that containers promise?

Incus/LXD: System Containers for the Real World

Enter Incus (the evolution of LXD), the lightweight yet powerful container and virtual machine manager built on Linux Containers (LXC). Unlike application-centric tools like Docker or Kubernetes, Incus specializes in system containers, lightweight virtual environments that run full (or minimal) Linux distributions. Think of them as VMs with near-bare-metal performance and container-like efficiency.

Why Incus/LXD is Turning Heads:

1. Radical Simplicity:
   • Deploy a full Linux system (with systemd, cron, and multiple services) in seconds using a single command: incus launch images:Debian/13 my-container.
   • Manage containers, VMs, storage, and networks through a unified, intuitive CLI or REST API. No YAML hell, no control-plane sprawl.
   • Ideal for lift-and-shift migrations, legacy app containerization, or deploying modular monoliths with minimal fuss.
2. Resource Efficiency That Lowers TCO:
   • Incus containers share the host kernel, consuming 10x less overhead than traditional VMs. Run more workloads per physical server, reducing cloud bills or on-premises hardware costs.
   • No dedicated control plane nodes, sidecars, or agents eating into your CPU/memory budget.
3. Cloud Agnostic by Design:
   • Run Incus anywhere: on-premises, in any public cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP), or at the edge. Avoid vendor lock-in and maintain consistency across environments.
   • Integrates seamlessly with OpenStack, MAAS, or standalone metal.
4. Built for Teams Who Value Time:
   • Instant snapshots and live migration make backups, updates, and disaster recovery trivial.
   • Ephemeral containers for CI/CD testing? One command. Cloning a production environment? Done.

ZFS: The Storage Engine That Supercharges Incus

Incus isn’t just about containers; it’s a full-stack solution when paired with ZFS, the battle-tested filesystem and volume manager. ZFS isn’t just storage; it’s a data integrity and efficiency powerhouse.

Why ZFS + Incus is a Game-Changer:

• Snapshots and Clones: Revert a container to a previous state in milliseconds. Clone a 100GB dataset in seconds with near-zero storage overhead. Perfect for testing, rollbacks, or spinning up identical environments.
• End-to-End Data Integrity: Checksums detect and correct silent data corruption, critical for backups and compliance.
• Compression and Deduplication: Slash storage costs by 2–4x for many workloads (e.g., logs, databases, VM images).
• Seamless Replication: Sync datasets or entire containers to another host or offsite for disaster recovery.

Together, Incus and ZFS create a unified, self-healing infrastructure where storage and compute are managed as one cohesive system.

The Bottom Line: ROI That Speaks Volumes

Let’s talk numbers. For organizations re-evaluating Kubernetes:

For many workloads, from internal tools and legacy apps to scalable monoliths and private clouds, Incus/LXD and ZFS deliver superior ROI without sacrificing performance or security.

The Verdict: It’s Time to Reclaim Simplicity

Kubernetes and microservices solved real problems, but they also introduced a new class of challenges. The future of infrastructure isn’t about chasing the shiniest tool; it’s about solving problems sustainably.

Incus/LXD and ZFS represent a return to Linux-native, administrator-friendly technologies that empower teams to do more with less. They’re not just “good enough”, they’re strategically superior for organizations prioritizing cost control, operational sanity, and cloud independence.

Ready to see how Incus/LXD and ZFS can transform your infrastructure?

I help businesses like yours leverage these battle-tested tools to reduce costs, simplify operations, and build resilient, future-proof systems. If you are considering migrating from Kubernetes, want to modernize legacy apps, or want to build a private cloud, please contact me for an initial assessment and to explore the possibilities.