There are lighter Kubernetes "distributions" (kind, minikube), but what makes k3s special is that it's (a) packaged as two binaries that provide all of the Kubernetes components in one, and (b) it's 100% suitable for production use.
Lots of teams are using K3s to run Kubernetes at the edge and in IoT applications, and with good reason. It's a fantastic Kubernetes distribution that's well-maintained, easy to get going with and well-documented.
(Ironically, if you look at the first commits to kubernetes/kubernetes, the Kubernetes components were originally shipped as a single binary. They decided to break them up later to simplify releasing, but the k3s monolith lives on.)
Lots of teams are using K3s to run Kubernetes at the edge and in IoT applications, and with good reason. It's a fantastic Kubernetes distribution that's well-maintained, easy to get going with and well-documented.
(Ironically, if you look at the first commits to kubernetes/kubernetes, the Kubernetes components were originally shipped as a single binary. They decided to break them up later to simplify releasing, but the k3s monolith lives on.)