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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
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (18th)
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 August 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Amazon EKS is 11.5%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Kubernetes is 6.3%, down from 7.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Rock Wang - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing complex environments effortlessly while focusing on growth
The most beneficial aspect of Amazon EKS is that it helps manage the Kubernetes master node, so I don't need to maintain the master node, including tasks like upgrading. This allows me to focus on business code. If using services like Fargate, I only need to maintain my workload, simply uploading code that will be deployed to the Kubernetes cluster. This is especially beneficial for startup companies that lack the technical resources to manage the Kubernetes cluster. Furthermore, Amazon EKS allows me to utilize Kubernetes cluster-level expansion. If there’s insufficient resource on a machine, the cluster can automatically expand to add new nodes.
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

"EKS has security features that you can't find in competing solutions."
"Amazon EKS offers replatforming and migration capabilities to our customers, enabling them to move from AWS to other platforms like AKS with minimal changes."
"The solution is easy to use."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Based on my experience, the best features are backed up with extensive security that AWS allows and is firmly integrated into their entire AWS cloud."
"Amazon EKS provides good support."
"I like the scalability they're currently providing. Integration was very easy. It was a good experience."
"The most beneficial aspect of Amazon EKS is that it helps manage the Kubernetes master node, so I don't need to maintain the master node, including tasks like upgrading."
"It's scalable."
"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 most valuable feature of Kubernetes is its support for load balancing."
"Kubernetes is easy to use, maintain resources, and configure YAML efficiently."
"Offers a crucial feedback process"
"Provides auto rollback and scale-up and scale-down functionalities."
"I found it to be an excellent solution for application deployment. It's great for containerization."
"The cluster is very stable with outward scalability and good performance."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, we face minor connectivity issues."
"They could add logging features. At present, we use external tools to increase and decrease the number of instances."
"I believe the initial setup could be a better experience and faster customer support."
"I would like to see it a little more stable, more operational, and more convenient to develop."
"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."
"For a few of the cluster upgrades that got stuck, we connect with Amazon tech support, as we have business support with Amazon."
"I'm having difficulty getting my AWS clusters to communicate with my local machine."
"There is room for improvement for Amazon EKS because we initially had some issues getting the logging out of it, since what they're providing into CloudTrail is what we get."
"Security could be improved. It would be helpful if there were other security modules built into Kubernetes."
"Kubernetes can be complicated to understand."
"The security of the solution is in its infancy and needs a lot of work."
"Setup was not straightforward."
"Kubernetes should improve its consistency across different types of deployments. My customers tell me that they get much better performance when Kubernetes is deployed on VM versus PaaS services from Azure."
"Lacks some scalability and more user-friendly operability."
"Kubernetes is incredibly complicated, so one area of improvement is the ease of administration. I would like a user interface that you can run to help you debug and diagnose problems and suggest how to configure things."
"The tool needs to improve its UI. The tool is very complex and basic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is quite costly and developers will start exploring other solutions or moving their workloads to other clouds if costs aren't reduced."
"Amazon EKS is very cost-effective."
"My company paid for the license."
"Amazon EKS is not a cheap solution."
"The tool's pricing is good."
"I rate Amazon EKS’s pricing a nine out of ten."
"Cloud based pay-as-you-go pricing"
"The solution is cheaper than one of its competitors."
"Microsoft provides reasonable costs for Kubernetes."
"Kubernetes is open-source."
"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."
"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."
"The solution requires a license to use it."
"Kubernetes is open source and is an orchestration platform. It is a cost effective solution and its pricing depends on your company and how you use it"
"The solution is open source and has no fees."
"There is a license to use Kubernetes."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
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?
My experience with pricing for Amazon EKS is limited as there's a separate team for that, and I do not have much knowledge of specifics. However, the pricing is based on the instance type we use in...
What needs improvement with Amazon EKS?
Regarding the flexibility part, if I want to use something such as Kong/Linkerd service mesh or other solutions, most of the CSPs bind you to their own solutions rather than allow other options to ...
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: July 2025.
865,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.