The purpose of this article is to take a quick look at some top features comparison in Docker containers orchestration solutions for two major Cloud Providers. As the title states, we will take Microsoft Azure Container Service (Swarm) vs. Amazon EC2 Container Service. Then we will look at Docker Swarm Mode built-in orchestration functionality that works almost identically independently of host provider just to show what to expect if you don’t want to deal with “service jail”.

This should leave you with a question:

“Is built-in Docker Container Orchestration on Cloud Providers worth it?”

I know, that it is not completely fair to compare Microsoft Azure Container Service (Swarm) with Amazon EC2 Container Service.

However, after evaluating other choices like Kubernetes and DC/OS, which Azure currently adopts support of, I figured out that the most common orchestration competitor will be the Docker Swarm.

First we can compare functional capabilities of container orchestration tools using matrix tables provided below.

Then functional capabilities and non-functional qualities details will be described in short form.

To avoid any holy-wars or controversies all functional features go with a brief description of meaning related to this particular article.

If orchestration tool in the very basic scenario does the job mentioned in the description, then it is considered as supported. If the job could be covered by other service or component of Cloud Provider, or it could be done by little reconfiguration, then it is considered as partially supported. If the job requires full reconfiguration of container cluster or just can’t be done using public version of the Docker Engine, then it is considered as not supported.

Don’t expect an advanced comparison of functional capabilities and especially non-functional qualities, because it would take an enormous amount of time and would look like a small version of Wikipedia…

Legend of icons used in comparison matrix tables:

Supported

Not supported

Partially supported

- Feature is supported in a matter of orchestration

- Feature is unsupported in a matter of orchestration



- Feature support is covered by other service or component of Cloud Provider