I use EKS as an application management system and a second application server. It's connected to Amazon RDS.
Senior Devops Engineer at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
I like the security features
Pros and Cons
- "EKS has security features that you can't find in competing solutions."
- "I'm having difficulty getting my AWS clusters to communicate with my local machine."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
EKS has security features that you can't find in competing solutions.
What needs improvement?
I'm having difficulty getting my AWS clusters to communicate with my local machine.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used EKS for three years.
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Amazon EKS
January 2026
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Amazon EKS is scalable. We have about 20,000 users.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up EKS is simple compared to OpenShift. It isn't too complex. We have a hybrid setup due to government data rules. I deployed EKS alone.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I rate EKS seven out of 10 for affordability. Amazon EKS costs us $730 a year.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Amazon EKS nine out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Solution Architect at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Easy to set up and upgrade
Pros and Cons
- "The most important aspect of Amazon EKS is that it is easy to set up and very easy to upgrade."
- "Amazon EKS provides very minimum information during the upgrade of the node group."
What is our primary use case?
We run all our microservices across the globe with Amazon EKS. We also use it for development, testing, and maintenance.
How has it helped my organization?
In the past, we have faced challenges with scalability and maintenance while running clusters. Amazon EKS is very easy to maintain. So it allows us to focus on our deployment.
What is most valuable?
The most important aspect of Amazon EKS is that it is easy to set up and very easy to upgrade. So we can focus on maintaining and deploying our microservice. It is also easy to scale and easy to monitor.
What needs improvement?
Amazon EKS provides very minimum information during the upgrade of the node group. When the upgrade doesn't work well, it doesn't give enough information for us to troubleshoot. So it would be great if Amazon EKS provided more information in such cases.
Amazon EKS should enable some AIOps.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon EKS for the past three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
As a Kubernetes-managed platform, it is pretty stable. You can stabilize the new version when it is available in AWS.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is easy to set up, and the Amazon EKS control plane accommodates scaling.
How are customer service and support?
Whenever we experience any challenges, we always get a very fast response from AWS support. We are happy with the support provided so far.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We shifted to Amazon EKS because we faced some issues with our old system on OpenShift. OpenShift also has a high license price as compared to Amazon EKS.
How was the initial setup?
We had some challenges at the beginning. It took us a few weeks to get one cluster up. Later, we improved our approach by using Terraform to manage it. Now, we can set up many clusters within one or two hours. We use around 60 clusters now.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented it through our in-house team.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Amazon EKS is very cost-effective. I rate the pricing a ten on a scale of one to ten.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Other teams in the organization are trying to explore Google Kubernetes Engine. However, for our team, AWS is a lot easier. Our team might not move to other cloud providers because running Terraform is very useful for us.
What other advice do I have?
In the internal cluster, we have four hundred people working with Amazon EKS. We have a lot of customers running billions of transactions. Overall, I rate Amazon EKS a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Amazon EKS
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about Amazon EKS. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Solutions Architect at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
An easily downloadable solution that enables containerization without relying on cloud infrastructure
Pros and Cons
- "It has always helped me. It is the repository where we store our images...The microservices appear to be well-made, and I don't have any comments on them as I don't see any flaws."
- "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."
What is our primary use case?
Amazon EKS is used in containerization, which means that you deploy any application and package it into its own miniature server. Then, store that application in an encapsulated form within a server which is an operating system, and keep it aside so that the repository recurses.
How has it helped my organization?
It has always helped me. It is the repository where we store our images.
What is most valuable?
It's a cluster service. So Amazon EKS is essentially a Kubernetes service, which is a product created by Google and is open-sourced, meaning it can be downloaded and installed on a server in a company's data center without needing the cloud for containerization or microservices. With Kubernetes, you can build and deploy microservice applications within a Kubernetes cluster. So, all your microservices will be running under Kubernetes within a cluster. Kubernetes is what that particular class of software is called, and we refer to it as an orchestration tool. It'll figure out and make sure that your microservice is always available. So, you can go and tell them before starting Kubernetes about the number of properties, files, or variables and issue commands to determine the instances of microservices available, including setting a minimum of one or two instances. To shut down a microservice, you can set the instances to zero. Essentially, Kubernetes allows an organization or anyone to have a cluster of microservices served without needing a cloud. Amazon AWS offers Kubernetes as a service because they found that many people are using Kubernetes.
What needs improvement?
The microservices appear to be well-made, and I don't have any comments on them as I don't see any flaws. Essentially, each microservice has a substantial ephemeral space available, providing gigabytes of storage. It would be helpful if this default storage allocation could be reduced to avoid the need for excessive resources when running microservices.
The goal and idea behind microservices are to always be available and capable of handling any load, no matter how many requests come through. At times, there might be millions of requests from people. 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. Increasing resources should enable microservices to handle the demands of the world. I would like to see the technology scale up to the point where individuals can run a service from home even with fewer resources.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Amazon EKS for about four years, and there is no specific version of the tool because it automatically gets updated. So, the latest version is always available.
What other advice do I have?
I personally prefer this solution to Amazon Fargate and would rate it an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Partner / Head of Data & Analytics at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Scalable, stable, and a mature cloud computing technology
Pros and Cons
- "What I found most valuable in Amazon EKS is its maturity as a cloud computing technology."
- "An area for improvement in Amazon EKS is the user experience. The platform could be more user-friendly. Only an expert can manage and use it."
What is our primary use case?
I use Amazon EKS for telco event monitoring.
How has it helped my organization?
My company found Amazon EKS beneficial in terms of the scalability and stability of event monitoring.
What is most valuable?
What I found most valuable in Amazon EKS is its maturity as a cloud computing technology.
What needs improvement?
An area for improvement in Amazon EKS is the user experience. The platform could be more user-friendly. Only an expert can manage and use it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Amazon EKS for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of Amazon EKS is a ten for me.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability-wise, Amazon EKS is a ten. My team didn't have any problems scaling it.
How are customer service and support?
I had some issues with Amazon EKS. The technical support team found the problems difficult to solve at the time, so support-wise, it's a nine out of ten. Support is not perfect.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
I didn't do the initial setup for Amazon EKS, so I have no idea how easy or difficult it is.
What was our ROI?
I saw ROI from Amazon EKS.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Amazon EKS has fair pricing. It's better in terms of pricing than other platforms.
What other advice do I have?
I advise anyone planning to use Amazon EKS to do the training because it's initially tough to use the platform.
I rate Amazon EKS as nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Staff Cloud DevOps Engineer at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
An intelligent solution that automatically upscales or downscales to set thresholds
Pros and Cons
- "The solution's Autoscaler option allows for an increase in worker notes whenever particular thresholds are exceeded."
- "The solution should include a popup for clusters so that all relevant information is visible at the bottom of a page."
What is our primary use case?
Our client in the healthcare industry has multiple clinics and patients who use the solution to interact with their portal and insert patient details. Patient information is managed via databases created in the solution.
How has it helped my organization?
We are still exploring how the solution benefits us because we are enhancing many things on the application side including bug fixes or other items at the code level.
On the cluster side, we are exploring options to enhance application performance. We are not sure if the solution has created a drastic change, but before we were able to perform and now we are performing well.
What is most valuable?
The solution's Autoscaler option allows for an increase in worker notes whenever particular thresholds are exceeded. In our client's case, this is beneficial because the application sits idle the whole night and peaks in the morning hours of 9-10 am as everyone starts interacting with it and processing their workload.
The solution is quite intelligent and is enhanced every day. They recently introduced a carpenter service that provides added advantages and are working on auto-scaling enhancements which have already allowed us to scale up our Kubernetes Clusters.
What needs improvement?
The solution should include a popup for clusters so that all relevant information is visible at the bottom of a page.
When clusters exist or are running, there isn't much detail on the first phase so navigating and clicking on different options is required to search for relevant information.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I really like the stability of the solution.
We are using the solution to its full capacity to manage various environments and clusters that segregate our client's workload.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable and includes the ability to instruct a cluster to automatically upscale or downscale depending on thresholds written in the code.
How are customer service and support?
Support is quite good. I haven't used technical support for this solution but have raised tickets for other Amazon products such as IAM or S3 and received help with documentation and tutorials.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I started my journey as a DevOps engineer with this solution per our client's requirement.
How was the initial setup?
I was not involved in the initial setup because all customers already had the solution in place before I started interacting with them. I know that setup requires streamlining but is quite easy and just takes time.
I use some pipelines to deploy workloads such as Terraform or Argo CD where I build artifacts or codes that interact with the solution. Whenever a merge occurs, the pipelines get triggered and automatically deploy in the development environment. If test pieces pass, then they move to the next phase and are deployed on the production level.
A team of five would be a good fit for a mid-level customer because they can simultaneously work on writing home scripts for the EKS Cluster, building the whole network, and reviewing existing queries. A larger company might require more developers.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is quite costly and developers will start exploring other solutions or moving their workloads to other clouds if costs aren't reduced.
Our client pays the licensing fees so I don't have specifics about its cost, but I hear that the solution is expensive so I am rating it a five out of ten.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We are analyzing the solution's behavior but might switch to ECS which provides dedicated resources to an application and runs on its own.
What other advice do I have?
If you are interested in implementing the solution, first refer to the documentation or existing use cases.
For example, a streaming company similar to Netflix can adopt and modify a use case related to the Amazon portal. There are resources that help with deciding to implement the solution.
I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Provides an easy way to create clusters without having to manage the control plane separately
Pros and Cons
- "It's the best option for medium or large enterprises."
- "There is room for improvement in stability. I faced some problems with the App."
What is our primary use case?
It's a great service because we can do a lot of things using it. It's easy to create clusters and services in pods there.
So, the main purpose is to create clusters and services and define some pods there.
How has it helped my organization?
We reduced the cost by using one cluster instead of using different services and different virtual machines in a client. So, Amazon EKS helped our organization reduce costs.
What is most valuable?
This is the way we can create a cluster because we don't need to pay attention to the control plane. We only need to deploy the services in the worker nodes and configure some configurations, easy configurations, and the cluster is done to be published.
Basically, AWS provides all features that we have prepared.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in stability. I faced some problems with the App. The problem is actually the app, with the different teams fixing it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for 18 months. I work on different projects. Basically, we create a structure and per clients, and we move to another project. So we did different projects for how long of the year.
We are currently using version 1.24, but we are migrating to the latest version, which is 1.28.70.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. I faced some problems with the App. The problem is actually the app with the different teams fixing it, but I would say the Kubernetes - it's ten. The service is ten. But if everything is considered, it's eight.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. It is perfect. Moreover, more than one hundred users have access per hour.
We use this solution every day. Thus, we use the solution to its maximum potential.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did the research for Azure, but all the structure and other resources were applied in AWS, so we kept it in the same provider.
We also used a local structure, but we're at a short time. And the infrastructure had already been done. I only need to support the application. It's full.
How was the initial setup?
The thing that takes more time to be constructed with the code is minutes and hours to provide the EKS code, but with the structure is really fast.
Basically, it used the code. They used the TerraForm code because we work with ESA, and, basically, the most important part for us is the code.
What about the implementation team?
We used the help of a third party, like, the partners of Amazon.
We required four people for the deployment process. However, the maintenance depends on the number of clusters and resources. So, two people are enough for the maintenance of the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would rate the pricing model a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is very expensive.
It was rather expensive; compared to GCP and Azure, it's a little more expensive. The price can be a problem for small-sized businesses.
There are no additional costs to the standard license.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
So I work as a DevOps engineer. But basically, using TerraForm or other tools like that, I never worked with another provider as Google and Microsoft. So, basically, I use AWS.
Actually, there are a lot of reports that I use every day. So we use tools related to that, like load balancers, ECRs, and EKS— so different resource things.
What other advice do I have?
It's a great service. Some services are more expensive compared to other providers. But in general, it's the best option for medium or large enterprises.
Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Owner at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
A powerful and compliant platform for Kubernetes that is also scalable
Pros and Cons
- "The tool works well with the nodes in AWS. It's scalability is also good in terms of architecture."
- "I am not impressed with the tool's Amazon console. It also needs to add security features."
What is our primary use case?
I have clients that run on Kubernetes engines.
What is most valuable?
The tool works well with the nodes in AWS. It's scalability is also good in terms of architecture.
What needs improvement?
I am not impressed with the tool's Amazon console. It also needs to add security features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the product for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the product's scalability a ten out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The tool's premium support is good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The solution's deployment gets completed in minutes. You need one DevOps engineer to maintain the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution is pricey. The tool's pricing is monthly.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. It is the best platform for Kubernetes. The tool is also compliant. You need a demo to get started with it.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Integrator
Solution Architect Grade I at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
We can deploy the solution's microservices on any service we are developing
Pros and Cons
- "We haven't faced any major issues in one and a half years of use."
- "The solution could be improved by adding monitoring, filtering, and logging capabilities to its current CloudWatch features."
What is our primary use case?
Our client is doing some image analysis, and we need a robust system that won't go down during the image rotation, so we are using Amazon EKS. With this solution, our services will not go down during their work, and data will remain safe and available to the user.
What is most valuable?
Firstly, whenever a service goes down, EKS automatically makes up that part, enabling the services to remain available. And secondly, whenever we deploy anything, we don't have to consider security between services because EKS provides that as well. We need to configure some supportive plug-ins and tools, which is relatively easy. This feature also provides monitoring, so if our service goes down, we have an alert mechanism and logging.
We can deploy EKS microservices on any service we are developing.
What needs improvement?
The solution could be improved by adding monitoring, filtering, and logging capabilities to its current CloudWatch features.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using the solution for one and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We haven't faced any major issues in one and a half years of use. We had an issue with storage, which we capped, giving us access to more space from the cloud. There are some other minor issues, but nothing major.
I would rate the solution's stability as eight out of 10.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We use the solution because it allows you to scale your application up and down.
We have 500 data scientists actively using our EKS tool at any time.
How are customer service and support?
We usually get support on time, but sometimes we have critical issues or something they need more time to deal with.
We would give them nine out of 10 for the quality of support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
When deploying the solution, we used Jenkins to develop a CI/CD pipeline. It was a one-person job that took about 20 to 25 minutes.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale of one to 10, we would give the product an overall rating of eight.
EKS is for deploying microservice projects. If you have multiple services in your application, you can deploy them and design your application accordingly.
We can deploy EKS microservices on any service we are developing.
I would certainly recommend the product to new users, but it would depend on the technology stack and the project. If a certain use case requires EKS, I would definitely advise using EKS rather than Google or Azure's EKS. I recommend Amazon Cloud Services for its reliable support and minimum downtime.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
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sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2026
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