Benchmarks crack open the myth: VM-based Kubernetes rivals bare metal. It secures 99% throughput. It matches latency in netperf and MLPerf. Major clouds spin containers on VMs. They enforce hard resource caps, isolation, and central policy management. Bare metal shrinks to ultra-low-latency niches.

Infra shift: VM-backed clusters seize the lead as performance gaps vanish. Bare metal sticks to latency-critical gigs.