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Amazon Elastic Container Service vs Google Kubernetes Engine 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 Elastic Container Se...
Ranking in Container Management
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Containers as a Service (CaaS) (1st)
Google Kubernetes Engine
Ranking in Container Management
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Amazon Elastic Container Service is 1.5%, down from 2.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Google Kubernetes Engine is 2.2%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

FABIO NAGAO - PeerSpot reviewer
Horizontal scaling is streamlined when deploying modern workloads
Currently, when scaling with Amazon Elastic Container Service, I have to choose between monitoring CPU or memory usage to scale up or scale out; there is no option to monitor both simultaneously. This limitation makes it challenging to define a balanced scale-out automation since a well-written software should balance between processing and memory.
Abhilash Gopidas - PeerSpot reviewer
The auto-scaling feature helps during peak hours, but the support is not great
The product has no downtime. Automated scaling is a valuable feature. During peak hours, the datasets are on a higher volume. We need scaling in place. Otherwise, there's a degradation in the performance. We might sometimes miss data, or there will be no data sync between systems. Auto-scaling helps deal with performance needs during peak hours. There's no lag time for processing data.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I use the tool to manage containerized applications. What I like about Amazon ECS is the interface it provides. Although the configurations can be extensive, such as setting up auto-scaling groups and configuring separate tasks and services for each application, the interface makes it manageable."
"We primarily employ the Linux platform in terms of architecture. It utilizes its database, MySQL. Additionally, for CI/CD processes, we rely on Amazon CodeBuild. Furthermore, we use Amazon S3 storage to store specific static files. Currently, the system is running smoothly, and we don't actively perform any maintenance tasks as everything is automated."
"The support from AWS is incredible."
"For me, the best feature of ECS is Fargate because I don't have to manage anything. Instead, everything is managed by AWS and all I have to do, in essence, is configure my containers and deploy them."
"The solution is easy to scale and implement and provides performance monitoring and management tools."
"I like the tool's availability and automated scalability. I need to define the port numbers, and when I have a large load of requests, I can get automated scalability."
"Amazon EC2 Container Service is a flexible product from Amazon. You can put it in the Auto Scaling group for high availability. There are also a lot of choices for pricing."
"Amazon Elastic Container Service makes horizontal scaling easy and is especially effective when working under the ECS service."
"The main advantage of GKE is that it is a managed service. This means that Google is responsible for managing the master node in the Kubernetes cluster system. As a result, we can focus on deploying applications to the slaves, while Google handles any updates and security patches. The fact that GKE is fully integrated into the Google ecosystem, including solutions such as BigQuery and VertexAI. This makes it easier for us to integrate these tools into our process. This integration ultimately speeds up our time to market and reduces the time and effort spent on managing infrastructure. The managed aspect of GKE allows us to simply deploy and utilize it without having to worry about the technicalities of infrastructure management."
"The logs are important for detecting problems in our clusters."
"Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) takes care of managing Kubernetes, including the main control plane. It also offers solutions for monitoring resources and handling external traffic, which is essential for us. Being a cloud-native solution, it relieves us from worrying about these operational aspects."
"We appreciate that it is quite easy to set up a Kubernetes cluster in Google Cloud, using the managed services within this solution."
"The feature that I like the most is the ease of use as compared to AWS. Its ease of use is very high, and I can quickly deploy clusters with a simple template."
"Before using this solution, it was a lot of manual tasks and a lot of people participated in the process."
"I am satisfied with the stability offered by the solution."
"I am impressed with the product's output scaling."
 

Cons

"The solution is expensive compared to other alternatives like Azure."
"There is room for improvement in the licensing costs. There can be better licensing costs."
"The documentation and usage for the users can be better because for new users it can be very hard to understand and use the solution. They can add small images and accessories."
"Amazon Elastic Container Service should simplify its management. It can be difficult for someone who doesn't have much experience with the tool. Also, the tool needs to add the ability to manage networks."
"Currently, when scaling with Amazon Elastic Container Service, I have to choose between monitoring CPU or memory usage to scale up or scale out; there is no option to monitor both simultaneously."
"The orchestration of the workloads running in ECS needs improvement."
"The tool initially required a significant amount of development time on the backend, but in terms of efficiency, it's a one-time effort."
"Visualization is an important factor for me, and I don't think that the visuals within ECS are good enough because it doesn't show you all the details you might need to see at a glance."
"The notifications are not informative."
"An area in which Google Kubernetes Engine could improve is configuration."
"While the GKE cluster is secure, application-level security is an essential aspect that needs to be addressed. The security provided by GKE includes the security of communication between nodes within the cluster and the basic features of Kubernetes security. However, these features may not be sufficient for the security needs of an enterprise. Additional security measures must be added to ensure adequate protection. It has become a common practice to deploy security tools within a Kubernetes cluster. It would be ideal if these tools were included as part of the package, as this is a standard requirement in the industry. Thus, application-level security should be integrated into GKE for improved security measures."
"t is not very stable."
"Google Kubernetes Engine is less stable in some highly complex deployments with many nodes."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The product's stability is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The product’s visible allocation feature needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon Elastic Container Service's price is good."
"The solution's cost could be reduced."
"The pricing is good."
"Amazon Elastic Container Service is an expensive solution."
"If you want to scale without the traditional methods, the solution is a bit cost-effective."
"The product's pricing is good."
"The platform is inexpensive."
"They offer a pay-as-you-go pricing model for the product."
"I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price. The product is competitively priced."
"I would rate the solution's pricing a nine out of ten. The tool costs around 3000 dollars per month. There are no additional costs apart from these."
"We are planning to use external support, and hire a commercial partner for it."
"The product is a little bit expensive."
"It is competitive, and it is not expensive. It is almost competitive with AWS and the rest of the cloud solutions. We are spending around 3K USD per month. There are four projects that are currently running, and each one is incurring a cost of around 3K USD."
"Its pricing is good. They bill us only per user. That's nice."
"The tool's licensing costs are yearly."
"The price for Google Kubernetes Engine could be lower - I'd rate its pricing at three out of five."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
32%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Retailer
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon Elastic Container Service?
Implementing the product has helped me monitor the parameters. I utilize tools like CloudWatch and AWS systems to track these parameters. If any issues arise, I alert our developer team to address ...
What needs improvement with Amazon Elastic Container Service?
The solution must improve backup and compatibility around OS like Windows and Mac.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Kubernetes Engine?
For pricing, Google is considered cheaper compared to AWS, making it suitable for smaller to medium companies concerning cost. I would rate the cost around four out of ten, where ten is the higher ...
What needs improvement with Google Kubernetes Engine?
The management UI could be improved. When looking at the web interface, it feels kind of slow due to the many features involved. The interface could definitely be faster.
 

Also Known As

Amazon ECS, Amazon EC2 Container Service
GKE
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ubisoft, GoPro, TIBCO, Remind
Philips Lighting, Alpha Vertex, GroupBy, BQ
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon Elastic Container Service vs. Google Kubernetes Engine and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
841,004 professionals have used our research since 2012.