Repo Compare › Container orchestration
Kubernetes vs Nomad vs K3s
A side-by-side look at how actively Kubernetes, Nomad and K3s are developed on GitHub — popularity, contributor base, commit activity and how quickly issues and pull requests move.
What the numbers say
- Kubernetes is the most-starred of the 3, with 128k stars — about 7.5× Nomad's 17k.
- Over the 52 weeks to the snapshot, Kubernetes recorded the most commits (8.5k), against 521 for K3s.
- Kubernetes has closed or merged the most pull requests in its lifetime: 91k.
- Relative to its popularity, K3s carries the lightest open-issue load: 1.7 open issues per 1,000 stars, versus 88.6 for Nomad.
Head-to-head
Snapshot taken 30 September 2026.
| Metric | Kubernetes Active | Nomad Slowing | K3s Active |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars | 128k | 17k | 34k |
| Forks | 46k | 2.1k | 2.7k |
| Contributors | 5.9k | 948 | 339 |
| Commits, last 52 weeks | 8.5k | 785 | 521 |
| Open issues | 1.9k | 1.5k | 58 |
| Open pull requests | 1.3k | 123 | 16 |
| Closed / merged PRs | 91k | 18k | 5.6k |
| Watchers | 3.3k | 509 | 292 |
| Last push | 30 Sep 2026 | 30 Sep 2026 | 28 Sep 2026 |
| Latest release | v1.37.1 (Sep 2026) | v2.0.7 (Sep 2026) | v1.37.0+k3s1 (Sep 2026) |
| Main language | Go | Go | Go |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 | Not detected by GitHub | Apache-2.0 |
| Created | Jun 2014 | Jun 2015 | May 2018 |
Bold marks the highest value in a row. “Active / Slowing / Dormant” is a simple heuristic from how recently code was pushed and open issues per star — a starting point, not a verdict. Stars measure popularity, not quality.
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