Top Kubernetes books recommended by experts

At MentorCruise, we are all about making the most out of the experience of others. As part of that, we've connected and asked dozens of experts and professionals about their favourite Kubernetes books – and here are the answers.

Table of Contents

Fundamentals of Kubernetes

Understanding the concepts of Kubernetes starts with understanding the fundamentals. On your way to mastery, it's crucial for you to understand how certain concepts were derived, and why things work like they do. Starting with these resources is the best way to do so.

Kubernetes: Up and Running: Dive Into the Future of Infrastructure

In just five years, Kubernetes has radically changed the way developers and ops personnel build, deploy, and maintain applications in the cloud. ...

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Kubernetes for Developers

Kubernetes for Developers reveals practical and painless methods for deploying your apps on Kubernetes—even for small-to-medium sized applications! You’ll learn how to migrate your existing apps onto Kubernetes without a rebuild, and implement modern cloud native architectures that can handle your future growth.

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GitOps and Kubernetes: Continuous Deployment with Argo CD, Jenkins X, and Flux

GitOps and Kubernetes teaches you how to use Git and the GitOps methodology to manage a Kubernetes cluster.Summary GitOps and Kubernetes introduces a radical idea—managing your infrastructure with the same Git pull requests you use to manage your codebase. ...

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Docker Deep Dive: Zero to Docker in a single book

This is the ultimate book for learning Docker, brought to you by Docker Captain and leading educator in the container ecosystem Nigel Poulton. Docker Deep Dive is a masterpiece, expertly written, and rated by BookAuthority as "the number 1 all-time best book on Docker". As featured on CNN and Forbes, BookAuthority identifies and rates the best books in the world, based on public mentions, reco…

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Cloud Native DevOps with Kubernetes: Building, Deploying, and Scaling Modern Applications in the Cloud

Kubernetes has become the operating system of today's cloud native world, providing a reliable and scalable platform for running containerized workloads. In this friendly, pragmatic book, cloud experts Justin Domingus and John Arundel show you what Kubernetes can do-and what you can do with it. ...

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Quick Start Kubernetes

Do you need to figure out what Kubernetes is all about? Do you like learning through easy-to-follow hands-on?
If yes, this is the book for you...
Quick Start Kubernetes, brought to you by best-selling author Nigel Poulton, assumes zero prior experience and gets you to the point you can deploy and manage a simple app. And it does it in less than 100 pages!

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Additional Kubernetes Reading

These books are not required for you to learn Kubernetes, but they are highly recommended for you to deepen your knowledge.

Kubernetes Cookbook: Building Cloud Native Applications

If your organization is preparing to move toward a cloud-native computing architecture, this cookbook shows you how to successfully use Kubernetes, the de-facto standard for automating the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. ...

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Production Kubernetes

Kubernetes has become the dominant container orchestrator, but many organizations that have recently adopted this system are still struggling to run actual production workloads. ...

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Managing Kubernetes: Operating Kubernetes Clusters in the Real World

While Kubernetes has greatly simplified the task of deploying containerized applications, managing this orchestration framework on a daily basis can still be a complex undertaking. ...

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Kubernetes in Action

SummaryKubernetes in Action is a comprehensive guide to effectively developing and running applications in a Kubernetes environment. ...

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Kubernetes Best Practices: Blueprints for Building Successful Applications on Kubernetes

In this practical guide, four Kubernetes professionals with deep experience in distributed systems, enterprise application development, and open source will guide you through the process of building applications with this container orchestration system. Based on the experiences of companies that are running Kubernetes in production successfully, many of the methods are also backed by concrete …

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

Specializations and Deeper Kubernetes Knowledge

You've got your basics in order – time to move on to some advanced and specialized concepts. Kubernetes is evolving every day, these books can help you master it.

Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Study Guide

Developers with the ability to operate, troubleshoot, and monitor applications in Kubernetes are in high demand today. ...

Recommended by the experts and mentors at MentorCruise

This list is curated by MentorCruise and can include Amazon affiliate links. Have any other suggestions? Add here.

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Akram RIAHI is a Site Reliability Engineer (SRE) with an interest in all things Cloud Native. He is passionate about kubernetes resilience and chaos engineering at scale and is Litmus Chaos leader. A curator of quality tech content, he is the author of several blog posts and organizer of the …

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I am a full-stack software engineering manager/lead. I started my career as a frontend leaning full-stack engineer, then transitioned into a solely backend role before transitioning to the infrastructure and DevOps side of things. I have helped a number of self taught or recent bootcamp grads land their first job …

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My main area of expertise is high-traffic, data-intensive services development end-to-end - infrastructure, backend, frontend, tech ops. Additionally, I have substantial experience in organizing and managing software development teams and processes. I can help you with: - system design, - applying object-oriented principles in practice, - modern tech stack (Spring …

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I'm Shuvro Banerjee — currently a Senior Engineering Manager in Microsoft, with over 15 years of experience across product development, data engineering, cloud platforms (Azure), and team leadership. I’ve coached dozens of engineers throughout my career — helping them scale from ICs to tech leads and first-time managers, especially in …

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I’m a Staff Engineer at LinkedIn with 12+ years of experience building scalable systems, leading engineering teams, and mentoring developers across all levels. I’ve helped software engineers get promoted, land offers at top tech companies (FAANG+), and grow into leadership roles. Whether you’re aiming to: • Master system design and …

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