Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Amazon EKS vs Kubernetes comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EKS
Ranking in Container Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (13th)
Kubernetes
Ranking in Container Management
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Amazon EKS is 14.9%, up from 14.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kubernetes is 4.9%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Venkatramanan C.S. - PeerSpot reviewer
Amazon EKS: Why It Shines, Where It Struggles, and How It Can Improve
* EKS incurs an additional management fee ($0.10 per hour per cluster) along with EC2 or Fargate costs.May be expensive for smaller workloads compared to alternatives like AWS ECS.Requires expertise to configure and manage Kubernetes resources effectively.Networking (e.g., setting up VPCs, subnets, and service endpoints) can be complex.Simplifies managing multiple Kubernetes clusters, especially for organizations with hybrid or multi-region setups.Integrated dashboards for Kubernetes metrics, logs, and traces.Simplifies observability without needing third-party tools.
Venu Boddu - PeerSpot reviewer
Manage infrastructure automation and smooth application deployment with robust auto-scaling capabilities
Kubernetes is highly valuable for its node-based setup, which allows for the running of multiple pods. This feature is essential for infrastructure automation and application deployment. Kubernetes also offers rollback control and auto-scaling capabilities, which are crucial for maintaining an application's availability even if nodes or pods go down. Additionally, Kubernetes supports load balancing to distribute traffic efficiently across multiple pods.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution's performance is good."
"It's the best option for medium or large enterprises."
"EKS has security features that you can't find in competing solutions."
"The solution has very good basic features."
"Application deployment is more automatic."
"Initial setup is straightforward. It only takes 15 minutes to deploy."
"EKS provides autoscaling functionality."
"Provides high performance and easy manageability."
"The best feature is autoscaling. It's effortless to use for scaling deployment parts, CI/CD, etc."
"With the use of our blueprint, my experience with the initial setup has been a ten out of ten where one is difficult and ten is easy."
"The solution has many valuable features but the most impressive is the ability to scale an application and continuously monitor if all the components of the application are functioning correctly."
"Kubernetes' integration with AWS Lambda is great. I barely had to write any code to connect from EKS to Lambda, so Kubernetes is programmer friendly."
"I am impressed with the product's coupling of resources and flexibility."
"The autoscaling feature is the most valuable. Kubernetes itself is an orchestration tool. It automatically detects the load, and it automatically spins up the new Pod in the form of a new microservice deployment."
"This solution is cost effective and fast. We are able to use Kubernetes to orchestrate hundreds of container images which has been a major benefit."
"I like Kubernetes' scalability, built-in redundancy, and ease of deployment."
 

Cons

"I would like to see a cloud setup bank management feature."
"There is room for improvement in stability. I faced some problems with the App."
"The main thing to improve with Amazon EKS is the price. However, these services can be very expensive. For example, in countries like Turkey, the cost is too high. That's why we offer our cloud solutions locally. We developed hybrid solutions, but their prices are still very high."
"I encountered problems with the product’s documentation."
"I would like to see the user interface improved because it is hard to find and not straightforward."
"I'd like to see the solution add a service catalog."
"Amazon EKS could improve in its pricing model, particularly for medium-sized customers who might find the support costs high."
"They should include some essential configuration features to it."
"Lacks some scalability and more user-friendly operability."
"The price is something they need to improve."
"The management needs to be improved."
"The dashboard, monitoring, and login need improvements."
"The user-interface in regards to the other solution can be improved."
"We would to have additional features related to security within the API, instead of needing to install add-ons."
"Having a thread dump and memory dump, and seeing how many objects were created would be useful."
"The network policies and RBAC management across multi-clusters could be improved. This is an issue we're trying to solve in the market."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cheaper than one of its competitors."
"Amazon EKS is not a cheap solution."
"The solution is more expensive than other competitors and does not require a license."
"Cloud based pay-as-you-go pricing"
"Amazon EKS’s pricing is ok compared to its competitors."
"My company paid for the license."
"The product pricing depends on the specific requirements."
"Pricing is dependent upon instance type."
"Microsoft provides reasonable costs for Kubernetes."
"You need to pay for a license if you buy branded products. For example, if you take the services from Azure, AWS, or Google, the price of the Kubernetes cluster is inclusive of the service that's being offered to us on a pay-and-use model."
"There is a license to use Kubernetes."
"I would say the solution is worth the money, but it depends on the required workloads, the type of workload, and the scaling requirements etc."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"The solution is affordable."
"Kubernetes is an open-source solution that can be free. We have some distribution with licenses, such OpenShift and Tucows in Amazon. They are billing services."
"It's an affordable solution"
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Container Management solutions are best for your needs.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EKS?
The product's most valuable features are scalability, observability, and performance.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EKS?
I do not have specific details on EKS's pricing and licensing compared to other services. However, in general, deploying in the cloud offers lower latency and high availability and reduces manual i...
What needs improvement with Amazon EKS?
* EKS incurs an additional management fee ($0.10 per hour per cluster) along with EC2 or Fargate costs.May be expensive for smaller workloads compared to alternatives like AWS ECS.Requires expertis...
What do you like most about Kubernetes?
There are many good features. I feel that the scale-out features, like replica sets, are very good. The number of running containers can be autoscaled.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Kubernetes?
Since we use Kubernetes on-premises, the costs are related to our expertise and the personnel we hire.
What needs improvement with Kubernetes?
Although we face issues when migrating to new versions of Kubernetes, such as misunderstandings on using new features or integration with proxy services, these issues can be addressed with proper p...
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
K8
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GoDaddy, Pearson, FICO, Intuit, Verizon, Honeywell, Logicworks, RetailMeNot, LogMeIn, Conde Nast, mercari, Trainline, Axway
China unicom, NetEase Cloud, Nav, AppDirect
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EKS vs. Kubernetes and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.