The best way to learn a new technology is often to try it. Even if you prefer reading docs, hands-on experimentation is an ideal accompaniment to written instructions. Today I’m happy to announce the fastest and easiest way to try Kong on Kubernetes — the new Kong Kubernetes App on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) Marketplace.

Try Kong on GKE

Google Cloud recently announced the ability to quickly deploy containerized applications to Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) from the GCP Marketplace. Those same apps are just as easy to deploy to Kubernetes clusters running anywhere, not just on Google Cloud Platform.

A few developments make GCP + Kong the fastest way to try Kong on Kubernetes:

1. GCP has a free tier with credits for first-time users
2. Once you have a GCP account, deploying a Kubernetes cluster takes just one click (or one command, for those that prefer the CLI)
3. Once you have a Kubernetes cluster, deploying Kong to that cluster takes only a few more clicks

The following video is a walk-through of the process starting with step #2 and ending with tearing down the Kubernetes cluster to preserve your Google Cloud Platform credits.

Other ways to try Kong on Kubernetes

Kong’s install page for Kubernetes presents many other options for deploying Kong on Kubernetes. If you prefer a Helm chart, manifest files, Minikube, an ingress controller, or even Kong Enterprise, we’ve got you covered!

Find help and contribute

If you run into trouble or have improvements to suggest, we welcome your feedback on Kong Nation! You can also contribute to the project via Pull Requests on our documentation repo or the new repo for Kong on Kubernetes via GCP Marketplace.