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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
7.2
Number of Reviews
48
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 April 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Amazon EKS is 13.8%, up from 13.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kubernetes is 4.9%, down from 9.7% 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

"It is the best service because it has proper security packages."
"Initial setup is straightforward. It only takes 15 minutes to deploy."
"The solution's Autoscaler option allows for an increase in worker notes whenever particular thresholds are exceeded."
"The good thing was the integration of services. The only thing we had to think about was how we were pushing the code to GitHub or Bitbucket."
"Amazon EKS provides good support."
"Amazon EKS is a useful solution for modern, cloud-native applications. It offers both horizontal and vertical scaling, which is a big advantage. The tool can also help manage costs while maintaining high availability."
"Through Amazon EKS, we can have the blue-green deployment very easily."
"The most valuable features of Amazon EKS are its scalability features."
"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."
"Kubernetes has everything. Its design structure is quite advanced, and its offerings are extensive. The practical feature was the seamless failover."
"The most valuable aspect of the solution is the scalability."
"I am impressed with the product's coupling of resources and flexibility."
"Kubernetes allows us to update without downtime and to easily deploy new software, which is very beneficial for our operations."
"The most valuable features of Kubernetes have been autoscaling and its resilience mechanisms."
"The best feature is autoscaling. It's effortless to use for scaling deployment parts, CI/CD, etc."
"Kubernetes offers a lot of great features such as scalability and great portability of applications."
 

Cons

"I encountered problems with the product’s documentation."
"There is room for improvement in the interface of Amazon EKS."
"Amazon EKS could improve in its pricing model, particularly for medium-sized customers who might find the support costs high."
"The solution's graphical interface is not the best."
"Amazon EKS's vulnerability management of data could be improved."
"I'm having difficulty getting my AWS clusters to communicate with my local 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."
"Amazon EKS provides very minimum information during the upgrade of the node group."
"This product should have a more advanced built-in scheduler that uses real application metrics in the scheduling strategy."
"They should make documentation simpler for learning."
"Having a thread dump and memory dump, and seeing how many objects were created would be useful."
"The dashboard, monitoring, and login need improvements."
"Kubernetes can improve pod escalation."
"Kubernetes is a complex solution. The product needs to be more manageable and user-friendly."
"Absence of a built-in feature for local API creation"
"The initial setup of Kubernetes is difficult. However, if you are used to the flow then it is easier. The length of time it takes for the implementation depends on the project."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price could be cheaper. I would rate it as seven out of ten."
"Amazon EKS is not a cheap solution."
"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."
"Amazon EKS’s pricing is ok compared to its competitors."
"The solution is pricey. The tool's pricing is monthly."
"Amazon EKS has fair pricing. It's better in terms of pricing than other platforms."
"The solution's pricing is fair enough and a little less costly."
"The product pricing depends on the specific requirements."
"There is a license to use Kubernetes."
"Kubernetes is open-source."
"Kubernetes is free; it's open-source software."
"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."
"This is an open-source solution, so there are no licensing costs associated with its use."
"Microsoft provides reasonable costs for Kubernetes."
"I am using the solution's open-source version."
"The solution is affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
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: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.