Observability
Parseable on Kubernetes: Your Logs and Metrics, in Your Own Bucket
Run Parseable on your own Kubernetes cluster with one Ankra stack profile. Logs and metrics land as Parquet in an S3 bucket you own, for about €6.50 a terabyte.
Author
Mattias Åsell
Mattias writes about GitOps, security, and platform architecture - from draft-first AI workflows to the engineering behind Ankra's native deployment engine.
Articles by Mattias Åsell
Kubernetes
Kubernetes the Hard Way, Part 3: Back Up etcd and Restore a Lost Control Plane
Back up a Kubernetes 1.37 cluster by hand with etcd snapshots, then delete the control plane and restore it. Includes the encryption key trap, all tested.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes the Hard Way, Part 5: Certificates, Expiry and Renewal Without Downtime
Read every Kubernetes certificate, watch one expire, and renew them all by hand. Most components reload a renewed certificate with no restart at all. Tested.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes the Hard Way, Part 6: GitOps by Hand, a Reconcile Loop With Git and kubectl
Build GitOps from scratch on Kubernetes 1.37. A Git repository, a reconcile loop with kubectl server-side apply and pruning, drift repair, rollback, all tested.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes the Hard Way, Part 2: A Highly Available Control Plane
Build a Kubernetes 1.37 control plane that survives losing a server. Three control planes, etcd with TLS, a load balancer, and failure drills, all tested.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes the Hard Way, Part 4: Pod Networking by Hand, Without a CNI Plugin
Build Kubernetes pod networking by hand with network namespaces, veth pairs, a bridge, routes and NAT, then call a CNI plugin yourself and trace a Service. Tested.
AI
Kubernetes MCP Servers in 2026: Kubeconfig-Based vs Hosted, Compared
Seven Kubernetes MCP servers compared, from kubernetes-mcp-server and mcp-server-kubernetes to the EKS, AKS and GKE servers and Ankra's hosted one.
Comparisons
Kubernetes on Proxmox VE in 2026: Every Way to Run It, Compared
Proxmox VE has no built-in Kubernetes. Seven ways to run it in 2026, from Talos, Cluster API and Terraform to Cloudfleet and Ankra, and what each leaves to you.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes the Hard Way in 2026: Kubernetes 1.37 From Scratch
Kubernetes the Hard Way, updated for Kubernetes 1.37 and Debian 13. Every command tested end to end, on local machines and on Hetzner Cloud.
Comparisons
From AI-Built App to Production in 2026: Where to Run What You Made with Cursor, Claude Code or Lovable
Take an app built with Cursor, Claude Code, Lovable, Bolt or Replit to production in 2026. What production adds, the hosting routes compared, how to pick.
Comparisons
AI Tools for Kubernetes Operations in 2026: Troubleshooting Assistants, Agents and MCP Servers
Twelve AI tools for Kubernetes compared, from open source troubleshooters to AI operations platforms and MCP servers, and how each one handles write access.
Comparisons
Argo CD Alternatives in 2026: GitOps Platforms with a Proper UI
Flux with a web UI, Akuity, Harness, Octopus, Rancher Fleet, Devtron and Ankra compared, plus when plain Argo CD is still the right call.
Comparisons
European Heroku Alternatives in 2026: PaaS Options with EU Hosting
Hosted European PaaS or push-to-deploy in your own EU cloud account? Nine Heroku alternatives compared by headquarters, hosting location and fit.
Comparisons
Kubernetes Management Platforms in 2026: 10 Options Compared
Rancher, OpenShift, Spectro Cloud, Kubermatic, Portainer, Mirantis, Platform9, Azure Arc, Omni and Ankra compared, with who each fits.
Comparisons
Kubernetes on Hetzner in 2026: Every Way to Run It, Compared
Hetzner has no managed Kubernetes. Eight ways to run it in 2026, from kube-hetzner and Talos to Syself, Cloudfleet and Ankra, and what each leaves to you.
Comparisons
Northflank, Qovery and Porter Alternatives in 2026: Platforms That Deploy to Your Own Cloud
Northflank, Qovery, Porter, Ankra, Coolify, Dokploy, Kamal, Render and Railway compared, with where each runs your apps and who it fits in 2026.
Comparisons
Rancher Alternatives in 2026: 8 Options for Managing Kubernetes Clusters
Eight Rancher alternatives for 2026 compared side by side, from OpenShift and Spectro Cloud to Portainer and Omni, with when each one fits.
Kubernetes
We Moved Our Production to UpCloud. Here Is What Sovereignty Actually Cost.
Ankra's own platform now runs in Helsinki. The timeline, the bill, the benchmark numbers, and the places UpCloud let us down, from the team that did the move.
Kubernetes
Migrating From Vercel and Supabase to Ankra: What Moves and What Changes
Moving a Next.js app on Vercel with a Supabase backend onto a Kubernetes cluster you own. What maps across, the database move, and the hard parts.
Kubernetes
AWS vs GCP vs Hetzner: Six Clouds, One Kubernetes Benchmark
We ran the same k6, iperf3 and fio suite on EKS, GKE and Hetzner and lined the results up against UpCloud, OVH and DigitalOcean. The cheapest node in the test won more than it had any right to.
Kubernetes
The Spec Sheet Is Not a Benchmark: Testing Kubernetes Clusters in 15 Minutes
Two identical cloud VMs measured 2.8x apart on CPU; one failed etcd's fsync bar. A 15-minute in-cluster benchmark suite catches this before production does.
Kubernetes
UpCloud vs DigitalOcean vs OVH Kubernetes Benchmark
UpCloud vs DigitalOcean vs OVH on identical Kubernetes clusters. UpCloud led on storage and network, OVH on latency, DigitalOcean had the slowest tails.
Kubernetes
Life After ingress-nginx: A Field Guide to Gateway API
ingress-nginx is retired and its successor was cancelled before it shipped. A migration path to Gateway API that does not require a big-bang weekend.
Security
The Kubernetes Security Work That Actually Matters in 2026
Half of all clusters are running an ingress controller that stopped receiving security patches in March. Meanwhile, teams debate service meshes. The five findings that show up in every real cluster security review, each with the incident that proves it and the fix.
Security
How to Manage GitOps Secrets Without Plaintext in Git
Manage GitOps secrets by encrypting each value with SOPS and AGE before it reaches Git. Only ciphertext is committed and decrypted at deploy time.
Engineering
GitOps Without ArgoCD: Inside Ankra's Native Deployment Engine
New Ankra clusters no longer run ArgoCD. Here is the engineering story of the native deployment engine: why we built it, how the reconcile loop works, what the migration does to your live resources (nothing), and what we have not finished yet.
Startups
The Early-Stage Infrastructure Playbook: Kubernetes Before Your First DevOps Hire
'Don't use Kubernetes until you have a platform team' was good advice in 2019. The premises changed. What a two-to-six person company should set up in week one, what to deliberately skip, and what it actually costs: about zero.
AI
Drafts, Approvals, GitOps: Letting an AI Build Production Without Breaking It
AI agents have wiped real production databases this year. Replit's went down during a code freeze, Cursor's took nine seconds via Terraform. Here's how Ankra's draft-first, GitOps-backed AI gives teams a senior DevOps agent without that failure mode.
Best Practices
Kubernetes Best Practices for Production Deployments
Master the essential strategies and patterns for running reliable, scalable applications on Kubernetes in production. Learn from real-world examples and avoid common pitfalls.
Try it yourself
Run it on your own application.
Connect a repository and a cluster. Ankra builds, deploys and operates it with you.
From something you built to something people use.
- Deploy from your repository
- Run on infrastructure you choose
- Operate with your team and agents