nydus VS terraform-cdk

If you're pulling big images you could try kube-fledged (it's the simplest option, a CRD that works like a pre-puller for your images), or if you have a big cluster you can try a p2p distributor, like kraken or dragonfly2.

Also there's that project called Nydus that allows starting up big containers way faster. IIRC, starts the container before pulling the whole image, and begins to pull data as needed from the registry.

https://github.com/senthilrch/kube-fledged

https://github.com/dragonflyoss/Dragonfly2

https://github.com/uber/kraken

https://nydus.dev/

Nydus-fscache user guide: https://github.com/dragonflyoss/image-service/blob/master/docs/nydus-fscache.md

At first I tested it to deploy an OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes Service (MKS) with a Node Pool. And step by step, it worked. I even created a Pull Request (PR) in the terraform-cdk repository to add it as an example ☺️.

I'll be trying more sample app deployments with CDK and maybe even explore CDK for Terraform.

You can use CDK with other providers using https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-cdk

In my experience, CDK is far better than Pulumi, especially if you're mostly going to be using AWS.

I, personally, prefer Crossplane Composite Functions on top of CDK8S, but had dropped CDKTF due to bloat. You can actually manage Kubernetes updates/upgrade lifecycle with Crossplane, as well.

I was going to recommend Pulumi, but looks like CDK for Terraform is still being kept up to date.

Avoid Pulumi, get directly to source and use https://github.com/hashicorp/terraform-cdk