Kubernetes Practical By Samson Tanimawo, PhD Published Apr 7, 2026 4 min read

Image Pull Policy Discipline

imagePullPolicy: Always vs IfNotPresent. The decision.

Always

Pulls every restart. Slower; stable.

Best for prod; ensures latest deployed version.

Uses cached image if available.

Faster; staler.

Air-gapped clusters with pre-loaded images.

Specialised use case.