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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 (14th)
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 March 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Amazon EKS is 14.6%, up from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kubernetes is 4.9%, down from 10.1% 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 product helps us to configure the new environment."
"EKS has security features that you can't find in competing solutions."
"AWS cloud services are flexible and have thorough documentation. AWS also has data centers all over the world."
"It is the best service because it has proper security packages."
"I like its auto-scale feature very much."
"The most valuable feature is the computing speed."
"The solution is easy-to-set up."
"Break down your application into small modules to improve resiliency"
"The cluster is very stable with outward scalability and good performance."
"The most valuable feature of Kubernetes is automation. It is the best tool for automation."
"Kubernetes' most valuable features include scalability and deployment."
"The best thing about Kubernetes is orchestration. It is very good. We will not see much downtime unless there are some human errors. We do not see much downtime or issues with the container or automation."
"We use this solution for the hosting of micro-services. Kubernetes helps us to orchestrate all the containers hosting these micro-services."
"The auto-repair function in Kubernetes is perfect. When something breaks, the auto-repair function automatically repairs it. If you are running the content in Kubernetes, you have a good set up. You do not need to do anything for the management of this. So, the automation of Kubernetes is number one."
"A good interface, better than comparable solutions."
"The cloud-managed Kubernetes allow us to take care of a big system and deployment and container management without having a big operational team."
 

Cons

"Improvement is needed in reducing the complexity of using EKS."
"The goal and idea behind microservices are to always be available and capable of handling any load, no matter how many requests come through...All of these services are great, but I also think it would be useful to have the same technology available in a miniature resource size, enabling the same applications and services to run on a small machine."
"Amazon EKS is predominately public. However, the government has started to have a lot of interest in Kubernetes and is receiving more education on Kubernetes and Amazon EKS. If we can have the security of Amazon EKS align with the security that is set out by the government it would be much better."
"I encountered problems with the product’s documentation."
"The overall stability of the product should be improved to prevent any loss of data."
"Amazon EKS provides very minimum information during the upgrade of the node group."
"The documentation part of the product is an area of concern that needs to be made easier from an improvement perspective."
"The management of the nodes in Amazon EKS should be improved."
"Kubernetes could improve by having better integration with VMware solutions."
"Currently, in Kubernetes, all of the health deployments or monitoring, and the discrete tools need to be configured. Changing this would make it much easier. Otherwise, we have to rely on a external tool to implement the monitoring."
"The setup process could be improved as it's quite complex, especially for newbies."
"Security could be improved. It would be helpful if there were other security modules built into Kubernetes."
"Kubernetes can improve by providing a service offering catalog that can be readily populated in Kubernetes."
"They need to focus on more security internally."
"This solution is not very easy to use."
"The support could be faster at resolving issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is dependent upon instance type."
"Amazon EKS is quite pricey, but the functionality it provides is worth it."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"The product is available at such a huge scale in the market since the resources that are offered under the tool are competitively priced and available at a much cheaper rate compared to other solutions."
"The price can be a problem for small-sized businesses."
"Amazon EKS’s pricing is ok compared to its competitors."
"Amazon EKS is expensive."
"The solution is quite costly and developers will start exploring other solutions or moving their workloads to other clouds if costs aren't reduced."
"The price of Kubernetes could be lower. However, it is less expensive than VMware Tanzu. Additionally, technical support is expensive. The overall cost of the solution is approximately $1,000 annually."
"Kubernetes is free; it's open-source software."
"Microsoft provides reasonable costs for Kubernetes."
"The solution requires a license to use it."
"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."
"The management layer is free, which is perfect. You don't need to pay money for the management layer, but in AWS develop service, you need to pay. I think it is €75 per month for the management layer. It is free here, so you can have as many Kubernetes clusters as you need. You are paying just for the workload, that is, for the machine, CPU, memory, and everything."
"Pricing isn't a major concern for us. Since we resell Kubernetes services and focus on providing support, integration, and education, we don't usually have pricing issues. Our customers are more concerned with getting the right support and services than the cost. So, the value we provide is more important than the actual pricing. Pricing might change in the future, but it’s not a big issue for us right now."
"In addition to Kubernetes, you have to pay for support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.