Kubernetes vs Docker, PaaS, and Traditional Deployment Tools for AI Apps: What Developers Need in 2026

A pattern keeps repeating itself in AI projects. The model works. The demo works. The proof of concept gets approved. Then someone asks the question that nobody wants to answer: "How are we going to deploy this thing?" At first, the answer seems simple. You have a FastAPI backend, maybe a vector database, an LLM endpoint, and a Docker container that runs perfectly on your laptop. Then Kubernetes shows up. Suddenly you're reading documentation about pods, services, ingress controllers, o...