Best of Cloud Native — 2025

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   Article

   Collections·1y

   Understanding Containers and Pods: An In-Depth Introduction

   Containers provide a consistent and portable method to encapsulate applications with their dependencies, ensuring seamless operation across environments. Kubernetes extends the utility of containers by orchestrating their deployment, scaling, and management at scale. In Kubernetes, pods are the smallest deployable units, containing one or more containers and facilitating efficient resource sharing and application management.

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   InfoWorld·29w

   What’s the Go language really good for?

   Go has evolved from a curiosity to a battle-tested language powering major cloud-native projects like Docker and Kubernetes. Known for its simplicity, fast compilation, and built-in concurrency features (goroutines and channels), Go excels at building distributed network services, cloud applications, and standalone tools. While it offers automatic memory management and cross-platform portability, it deliberately omits features like macros and produces larger binaries. The language recently added generics in version 1.18 after years of deliberation. Go's future remains strong in cloud infrastructure and network services, with emerging interest in AI workloads, though it faces competition from Python in ML/AI and Rust in systems programming.

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   Article

   ITNEXT·1y

   Stop Building Platforms Nobody Uses: Pick the Right Kubernetes Abstraction with GitOps

   Building effective Kubernetes platforms requires understanding developer pain points and reducing complexity. Many internal developer platforms fail due to low adoption and increased cognitive load. Tools like Kro, Score, and GitOps can create efficient abstractions, streamline workflows, and improve developer satisfaction. The key is to select the right tools and abstraction layers empathetically.

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   Article

   Data Engineer Things·1y

   Its time to try Kestra

   Kestra is presented as an underrated yet powerful workflow orchestrator, boasting a user-friendly UI, YAML-based workflows, comprehensive documentation, and impressive scalability and performance. While it faces challenges such as being relatively new, having a smaller community, and some limitations in advanced features, Kestra’s simplicity and efficiency make it a promising tool for the future of data team workflow orchestration.

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   Article

   Nordic APIs·49w

   Top 10 API Gateways in 2025

   A comprehensive comparison of 10 leading API gateways in 2025, including Kong Gateway, Zuplo, Tyk, Gravitee, MuleSoft, Axway, Sensedia, Azure APIM, WSO2, and IBM API Connect. Each solution is evaluated based on core features, use cases, and target audiences, with considerations for deployment models, protocol requirements, ecosystem integration, and compliance needs. The guide emphasizes that API gateways have evolved beyond simple routing to become control planes for security, observability, and developer experience.

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   Article

   Devtron·1y

   21 Essential K8s Deployment Best Practices You Must Know

   Discover 21 essential best practices for deploying applications on Kubernetes, focusing on optimization, security, scaling, and observability. These practices ensure reliability and efficiency in cloud-native environments. Learn about tools and techniques such as Helm charts, taints and tolerations, pod placement, resource management, and GitOps for streamlined workflows.

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   Article

   Netguru·45w

   Why Golang's Popularity Is Soaring: Real Data From Top Tech Companies

   Go's popularity has surged with 5.8 million developers worldwide now using the language, overtaking Node.js for automated API requests. Key factors driving adoption include its simplicity with just 25 keywords, built-in concurrency through goroutines, and fast compilation times. Major tech companies like Netflix, Uber, and Dropbox have migrated critical systems to Go, reporting significant performance improvements. The language dominates cloud infrastructure tools including Kubernetes, Docker, and Terraform. Go developers earn competitive salaries averaging $76,000 annually, with experienced US developers commanding up to $500,000. Despite competition from Rust, Go's future looks strong in AI infrastructure and edge computing applications.

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   Article

   Community Picks·1y

   litmuschaos/litmus: Litmus helps SREs and developers practice chaos engineering in a Cloud-native way. Chaos experiments are published at the ChaosHub (https://hub.litmuschaos.io). Community notes is

   LitmusChaos is an open-source Chaos Engineering platform designed to help teams identify infrastructure weaknesses by inducing controlled chaos tests. It operates as a set of microservices that use Kubernetes custom resources to define and manage chaos experiments. The platform includes a Chaos Control Plane for management and visualization, and a Chaos Execution Plane for running experiments. The core resources include ChaosExperiment, ChaosEngine, and ChaosResult, which helps in defining, linking, and storing the outcomes of chaos tests. LitmusChaos supports developers, CI/CD pipeline builders, and SREs to improve application resilience.

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   Article

   Community Picks·46w

   crossplane/crossplane: The Cloud Native Control Plane

   Crossplane is an open-source framework for building cloud native control planes without writing code. It provides an extensible backend for orchestrating applications and infrastructure across different environments, with a configurable frontend offering declarative APIs. As a CNCF project, it enables infrastructure management through Kubernetes-style resources and supports multiple cloud providers through its provider ecosystem.

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    Article

    CNCF·1y

    What is observability 2.0?

    Observability 2.0 is designed for modern, distributed systems like Kubernetes and microservices, addressing the limitations of traditional monitoring tools. It unifies telemetry data, uses AI for real-time anomaly detection, and links technical metrics to business outcomes. Organizations can achieve faster incident resolution, better system performance, and improved user satisfaction by adopting Observability 2.0 practices.

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    Article

    Giant Swarm·27w

    Infrastructure for AI is finally getting a standard

    The CNCF launched the Kubernetes AI Conformance Program at KubeCon North America, establishing the first standardized baseline for running AI/ML workloads on Kubernetes. Giant Swarm became one of the first platforms to receive certification, addressing the fragmentation in AI infrastructure that has plagued organizations as they move from experimental models to production. The standard defines consistent capabilities, APIs, and configurations needed for reliable AI/ML workloads, with research showing 82% of organizations building custom AI solutions and 58% using Kubernetes. The certification provides teams with confidence in their infrastructure choices, backed by major industry players like Bloomberg, Zalando, OpenAI, NVIDIA, and Apple already using Kubernetes-based platforms for AI workloads.

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    Article

    Flink·1y

    Apache Flink 2.0.0: A new Era of Real-Time Data Processing

    Apache Flink 2.0.0 marks a significant release in the Flink series, introducing new features and architectural enhancements for real-time data processing. Key highlights include Disaggregated State Management, Materialized Tables, and deep integration with Apache Paimon for streaming lakehouse architectures. The release focuses on improving performance, scalability, and resource efficiency, making real-time computing more accessible and practical for diverse use cases. It also includes a new DataStream V2 API and removes several deprecated APIs, resulting in backward-incompatible changes.

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    Article

    KodeKloud's Squad·49w

    Periodic Table of Cloud & DevOps Tools

    A comprehensive visual guide showcasing 80+ DevOps and cloud tools organized across 12 domains, highlighting how the DevOps landscape has evolved beyond traditional tools like Jenkins and Docker. The guide emphasizes modern practices including GitOps workflows, built-in security, platform engineering, comprehensive observability, and cloud-native architectures. Rather than mastering all tools, the recommendation is to understand one tool per category and its role in the broader ecosystem.

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    Article

    Netguru·48w

    What is Golang: Why Top Tech Companies Choose Go in 2025

    Go programming language has gained significant adoption among major tech companies due to its simplicity, efficient concurrency model through goroutines, and fast compilation to native code. Originally created by Google to solve build time and complexity issues with C++ and Java, Go emphasizes composition over inheritance and provides built-in concurrency primitives. The language powers critical infrastructure tools like Kubernetes, Docker, and Terraform, while offering excellent performance with low memory footprint and fast startup times. Companies value Go for its ease of developer onboarding, reduced operational overhead through static binaries, and comprehensive built-in tooling. With recent additions like generics and a growing ecosystem, Go continues to be the preferred choice for cloud-native applications, microservices, and high-concurrency systems.

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    Article

    Code Like A Girl·24w

    CKAD Certified! A Guide to Passing the Exam

    A personal account of preparing for and passing the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) exam. Covers a structured 45-day preparation timeline using KodeKloud's Udemy course, mock tests from killer.sh, and hands-on practice exercises. Emphasizes the practical, hands-on nature of the exam with 17 questions in 2 hours, importance of mastering Kubernetes documentation, time management strategies, and exam day logistics. Includes specific tips like using copy-paste to avoid errors, flagging difficult questions, and understanding partial scoring.

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    Awesome Java Newsletter·51w

    Beyond Spring: Unlock Modern Java Development with Quarkus

    Quarkus offers a modern alternative to Spring Boot for Java development, focusing on build-time optimization rather than runtime flexibility. Key advantages include faster startup times, lower memory usage, instant hot reload during development, and container-native design. The framework provides type-safe configuration, simplified REST APIs, and optional native compilation with GraalVM while maintaining familiar Java patterns. Quarkus encourages modern Java practices like records, reactive programming, and simplified data access through Panache, making it well-suited for cloud-native applications, microservices, and serverless deployments.

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    Article

    InfoWorld·1y

    The key new features in .NET 10

    Microsoft has released the first preview of .NET 10, focusing on performance and reliability improvements. Key updates include an enhanced JIT engine in the runtime, devirtualization of array interfaces, and support for new x64 instructions. ASP.NET Core in .NET 10 now treats Blazor scripts as static assets and embraces OpenAPI 3.1.1 for better API documentation. New features like numeric string sorting and improved zip archive support aim to boost developer productivity.

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    Article

    ITNEXT·1y

    Platformless: How Choreo Built a Secure Kubernetes Platform with GitOps

    Choreo, by WSO2, is an open-source Internal Developer Platform (IDP) built on Kubernetes and more than 20 Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) tools. It aims to provide a secure, scalable, and developer-friendly environment by automating Kubernetes tasks and offering features such as secure defaults, network security, GitOps-based deployments, and enterprise-grade compliance. Choreo enables developers to focus on code while handling infrastructure concerns, thereby streamlining software delivery and security enforcement.

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    Article

    Telerik·47w

    .NET Aspire 1: What Is .NET Aspire?

    .NET Aspire is an opinionated toolkit designed to simplify cloud-native development by providing building blocks that handle common complexities like service discovery, health checks, telemetry, and secret management. The author introduces it as a solution to reduce the cognitive load of managing distributed microservices while maintaining the benefits of cloud-native architecture. The post sets up a five-part series that will demonstrate applying .NET Aspire to transform a monolithic guitar shop application into a microservices architecture.

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    Faun·31w

    My Kubestronaut journey

    A developer shares their experience completing all five CNCF Kubernetes certifications (KCNA, CKA, KCSA, CKAD, and CKS) over three months to become a Kubestronaut. The post details exam scores, preparation strategies, study resources used, and technical challenges encountered during the certification process, particularly with the PSI Secure Browser on Mac. Includes a GitHub repository with study notes, course recommendations, and practical tips for each certification exam.

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    Cloud Native Now·20w

    Best of 2025: Hardening Kubernetes Security with DevSecOps Practices

    Kubernetes security requires a fundamental shift from traditional perimeter-based approaches to DevSecOps practices. The article explores common security pitfalls including misconfigurations, runtime blind spots, and under-secured internal APIs. Key strategies include automation throughout the development lifecycle, policy-as-code enforcement using tools like OPA Gatekeeper, runtime security monitoring, and risk-based vulnerability prioritization. Success depends on cultural transformation with executive support, blameless postmortems, and shared responsibility. Emerging trends like GitOps for security management, eBPF for deeper observability, and AI-enhanced threat detection promise to further strengthen cloud-native security postures.

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    The New Stack·41w

    Kubernetes Is Getting a Better YAML

    Kubernetes 1.34 introduces KYAML, a strict subset of YAML designed specifically for Kubernetes that addresses common YAML frustrations. KYAML eliminates whitespace sensitivity, resolves the "Norway Problem" with consistent quoting, uses JSON-like syntax with braces and brackets, while maintaining YAML compatibility and supporting comments and trailing commas. The format can be used with kubectl using the `-o kyaml` flag and works with existing manifests and Helm charts without additional configuration.

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    DevOps Toolkit·1y

    Kro vs Helm: Is It Time to Ditch Helm Charts?

    The post discusses the ongoing debate between using Kro and Helm for managing Kubernetes resources. It argues that while Helm is a widely used templating engine for Kubernetes, Kro and similar custom resource definitions (CRDs) with controllers offer better operational performance and user experience. The post compares these tools within the broader context of Kubernetes resource management evolution, emphasizing the advantages of using higher-level resource definitions and controllers over traditional templating methods.

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    CNCF·1y

    Dragonfly v2.2.0 has been released

    Dragonfly v2.2.0 introduces a Rust-based client, bandwidth rate limiting for prefetching, and enhanced Harbor integration for preheating images. The new release also optimizes client's I/O performance, defines a new P2P protocol, and supports distributed rate limiting across clusters. Various significant bug fixes and improvements have been implemented. The Nydus and Console components have also received updates with added functionalities and a redesigned UI. Observability enhancements recommend using Prometheus and Grafana for monitoring.

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    Syncfusion·32w

    .NET Core vs. .NET Framework: Key Differences and Best Use Cases

    Modern .NET (formerly .NET Core) has evolved into the preferred choice for new development in 2025, offering cross-platform support, superior performance through tiered JIT and AOT compilation, cloud-native capabilities, and modular architecture via NuGet. While .NET Framework remains viable for legacy Windows applications with technologies like WPF, WinForms, and WCF, it receives only security updates and lacks modern deployment flexibility. Key differentiators include modern .NET's support for containers, microservices, HTTP/2, improved async programming, and active open-source development. Migration decisions should weigh business needs against long-term scalability and platform requirements.

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