Managing kubernetes yourself is a headache and why I more or less only consider managed services like Google Kubernetes Engine for real use-cases. That's why the original article showing that you could install and run it on a set of 3 micro preemptible instances for ~5 month was so compelling to me.
I did use kubeadm. It required considerably more than just 3 simple steps required to get a basic working cluster up. Two days was more like it.