Kubernetes is a cluster management system for managing containerized applications across multiple hosts, providing mechanisms for deployment, maintenance, and scaling of applications. It groups containers that make up an application into logical units for easy management and discovery.

Kubernetes builds upon years of experience at Google running production workloads at scale using a system called Borg, combined with best-of-breed ideas and practices from the community. Google released Kubernetes in 2014, donated it as a seed technology for the founding of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation in 2015, and continues actively using and developing the project.