Docker vs Kubernetes in Production: A Security-First Decision Framework

Docker vs Kubernetes in Production (2026): Security-First Decision Rubric No CVEs called out here, but your attack surface changes a lot depending on this choice. Patch this before your next standup. Security fixes and attack surface: what you actually inherit I have watched teams “choose Kubernetes for scale” and then fail their next audit because nobody owned RBAC, admission policy, or log retention. The platform choice did not cause the failure. The missing controls did. If you do not upgrade runtimes, you bank risk. That risk cashes out as a container escape on a Friday night, or as an incident report you cannot support because you did not keep audit logs. Docker Compose default risk: You concentrate trust on a small number of hosts. If an attacker lands on the node, they can usually reach everything on that node. Treat the host as the security boundary, patch the OS and Docker Engine on a schedule, and limit who can run docker commands. Kubernetes default risk: You add a control p