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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

"Amazon EKS provides good support."
"What I found most valuable in Amazon EKS is its maturity as a cloud computing technology."
"AWS EKS provides flexibility and scalability compared to on-premises Kubernetes."
"I like its auto-scale feature very much."
"The solution's Autoscaler option allows for an increase in worker notes whenever particular thresholds are exceeded."
"The solution has very good basic features."
"The product's most valuable features are scalability, observability, and performance."
"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."
"The performance is good."
"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."
"The cloud-managed Kubernetes allow us to take care of a big system and deployment and container management without having a big operational team."
"The most valuable feature of Kubernetes is its support for load balancing."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is that it's a container orchestrator. It has a huge user base and it is easily incorporated into all of the public clouds."
"This solution provides a comprehensive way to scale up our ports and containers, without having to use multiple products."
"It's scalable."
 

Cons

"I would like Amazon EKS to be easier to configure on various environments like Windows or Linux installations"
"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."
"There is room for improvement in the interface of Amazon EKS."
"I would like to see the user interface improved because it is hard to find and not straightforward."
"I would like to see a warm-up time for AWS Fargate, similar to what GCP Cloud Run has."
"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 believe the initial setup could be a better experience and faster customer support."
"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."
"It would be great if Kubernetes could handle a level of data backup."
"Kubernetes is a bit complex, and there's a steep learning curve. At the same time, I cannot imagine how it could be easier. You need many add-ons to it, and the commercial releases of Kubernetes should address that."
"The front end is very rudimentary."
"We would to have additional features related to security within the API, instead of needing to install add-ons."
"Kubernetes can be complicated to understand."
"Honestly, there is not much I like about Kubernetes. It's very complicated to deal with. I just do it because I have to."
"Lacks some scalability and more user-friendly operability."
"The security of the solution is in its infancy and needs a lot of work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is cheaper than one of its competitors."
"My company paid for the license."
"The product pricing depends on the specific requirements."
"Amazon EKS is quite pricey, but the functionality it provides is worth it."
"Amazon EKS’s pricing is ok compared to its competitors."
"Cloud based pay-as-you-go pricing"
"The solution is more expensive than other competitors and does not require a license."
"The price could be cheaper. I would rate it as seven out of ten."
"The solution requires a license to use it."
"We use the solution's open-source version."
"Microsoft provides reasonable costs for Kubernetes."
"In addition to Kubernetes, you have to pay for support."
"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."
"Kubernetes is free; it's open-source software."
"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."
"There is no licensing fee."
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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
16%
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.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.