minikube

Minikube is an open-source tool that runs a single-node Kubernetes cluster locally on a developer's workstation. It provides a simple, repeatable way to create a Kubernetes environment for learning, development, and testing without a remote cluster. Minikube is maintained by the Kubernetes community and is designed to complement cloud-based clusters by offering a portable, local deployment.

Minikube runs inside a virtual machine or container on the host, selected via a driver. Supported drivers include VirtualBox, VMware, Hyper-V, KVM2, Docker, Podman, and none for Linux. A typical workflow uses minikube start to provision the cluster, download a Kubernetes distribution, and configure the control plane on a single node. It exposes a wide range of addons, such as the Kubernetes dashboard, metrics-server, Ingress, and storage provisioners, and can expose services through a tunnel for LoadBalancer type services.

In terms of architecture, minikube runs a minimal Kubernetes control plane and a single node inside the VM or container, with kubectl configured in the environment to access the cluster. Minikube is intended for local development and learning, not production, and is constrained by host resources and the single-node setup. It is one of several local Kubernetes tools, alongside kind, MicroK8s, and k3d.