Minecraft network infra on k8s - advice needed

use neither and start with regular k8s deployments & statefulsets

Or any estimates of the monthly cost.

depends entirely on where you're planning to host it and how, kubernetes is not some single magic platform you deploy things on, you can even just self-host it on a baremetal server

yeah, currently I have a bare metal server which I'm planning to use for that.

then the cost is exactly what you're paying for that

do I need more than 1 tho, that's what i'm asking

that depends on how many minecraft servers you're running

adding kubernetes to the equation doesn't add anything

the other question is whether you really need kubernetes

(you don't)

For a k8s introduction I'm going to tell you now, don't bother trying to run prod on it, don't try setting up anything vaguely important on it until you can successfully keep it running in your lab for a year.

Use Docker for dev and a small network, if and only if you have system requirements that demand what Kubernetes can bring to the table, then you should consider if using it is even a smart idea.

It is quite possibly the single most powerful platform ever created for a server, but with that power it demands healthy respect, a lot of time and knowledge, and a herculean effort to understand it enough to run it properly.

If you're willing to put the time investment in? You can accomplish some fairly absurd things with it,

If not? It will likely attempt to footgun you at first opportunity.

So with that all said, what does pricing look like?

Kubernetes has some interesting overhead depending on your system requirements and platform. assuming you're smart and run it on Talos you're probably looking at between 10 and 16 gigs of RAM, a few threads, and upward of 150 gigs of storage per worker node in operational overhead and redundancy for core services, this assumes you're doing full N replication for your core and not part replication.

Control nodes typically want less resources, so expect a bit less across the board, particularly in storage.

So take roughly that out of whatever dedi you'd be buying for the node and then you can math the basic operational expense for the worker, then controls can likely be done on VPS.

Eyeballing it? Eeehh probably like $60/m in overhead to get something basic going.

Beyond that? You've got some choice to run MC on k8s, Shulker uses Agones which is servicable if a bit eh but it will work easily enough. Just throw Envoy in as your ingress and make some CRDs to get a beginner k8s network going.
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the alternative free & less buzzword solution, if you do end up wanting to look into kubernetes, just throw k3s onto your existing dedicated server

a basic single-node kubernetes cluster does not eat that much resources

Note as well that yeeting k3s on a server is a solution with some pretty severe failures and has extra knowledge required. Dedicated OSes like Talos tie exclusively into k8s so you don't get much in the way of having to manage the OS and k8s since the OS takes a lot of what it needs from the k8s config and basic install.

K3s on the other hand... it's much lighter, but installing it on any server requires you understand both k3s and whichever server you put it on very well since they don't come as a conjoined pair.

Certainly workable, but it does require extra config and a more careful hand since things can break more easily.

Core service updates are a good example of breakage. If you update Ubuntu it can break k3s, if you update k3s it can spontaneously decide it doesn't want to work on Ubuntu.

Talos updates are built around k8s so you don't get that.

In both cases you still have to watch out for installed apps and whatnot, so it's not like either is a plug and go solution.

if you update Ubuntu it can break k3s, if you update k3s it can spontaneously decide it doesn't want to work on Ubuntu.

neither of these basically ever happen

They do if you don't know what you're doing.

That's the concern rn.

it really does not

Not frequently, but it's enough that I wouldn't easily trust it in the hands of someone inexperienced, y'know?

Recovering Kubernetes is hard.

you are more likely to be hit by talos or kubernetes updates containing breaking changes than your linux distribution breaking something

it's a bold move imo to recommend someone new to use an entire linux distribution dedicated to running kubernetes

arguably more complex than just running the usual k3s cluster on ubuntu or some other distro of choice