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Amazon Elastic Container Service vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 1, 2025

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...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (12th), Containers as a Service (CaaS) (1st)
Nutanix Kubernetes Engine N...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

AG
Lead Developer at Virtual Restaurant Solutions
Starts strong with functionalities but reveals cost limitations
The main challenge with Amazon Elastic Container Service is the significant learning curve. Everything mentioned took months to understand. It is not for the faint of heart. Though they have graphical interfaces and numerous dashboards that help create all the services graphically, learning to use Bash can be challenging. Because these are headless servers by nature, there is no graphical interface. It is not similar to Windows where you can hit the start button and look for your program, or Mac where you can look for programs on your desktop. Instead, users must understand this new paradigm of a Linux headless server, which requires using command-based prompts for builds and development.
reviewer2741271 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nutanix Administrator at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Has provided seamless upgrade experiences and robust technical support
I have heard there are many features added in NKP that are not available in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE, such as load balancer features. The unified control plane feature is not being used in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE. We are currently using a third-party tool for load balancing, but going forward, NKP will include load balancer, ingress, and egress features, making infrastructure management much easier. There is no auto-scaling feature in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE; however, NKP offers it. In NKE, we created additional worker nodes and increased CPU and RAM capacity, but it required manual intervention. Concerning policy-driven governance in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE, we have the ability to implement RBAC at the cluster level, which helps maintain security by not granting full admin privileges to every end user, thus restricting access effectively.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 biggest lesson that I have learned from using this product is that it is highly available, cost-effective, and reliable."
"I like Amazon EC2 Container Service's elasticity."
"Overall, I would rate the solution highly over time as there is no reason not to, giving it a rating of 10 out of 10."
"They handle the backup process quite well. They automatically encapsulate it, including container backups, without relying heavily on the client's involvement. This is a significant advantage compared to other providers where clients often need to manage the process more independently. It's a feature that I find suitable and beneficial."
"Scalability and availability are the most valuable features of Amazon Elastic Container Service."
"I think this is a good solution with good documentation and is very straightforward to use."
"Amazon Elastic Container Service is more stable."
"The platform is valuable due to its ease of use and quick deployment capabilities."
"I would recommend using this product, it's very good."
"The solution is easy to manage. You can get everything in a single platform. It is also easy to work with Terraform as a code."
"The technical support is excellent."
"We can do a lot of provisioning."
"The most valuable features of the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) are its simplicity and efficiency during the initial cluster creation phase."
"Nutanix is very stable and reliable, based on my experience with many customers, including large banks and telcos."
"Karbon is embedded in the hypervisor, there are no deployment costs and the administration is via Prism Central."
 

Cons

"The solution must improve backup and compatibility around OS like Windows and Mac."
"The product should improve its price."
"Probably, they should include automated graphing, and monitoring solutions."
"Its scalability is good, though there are a few areas that need improvement.What needs to be improved with scalability is not specific, but it involves occasions when the scaling trigger does not perform up to the mark, and sometimes it gets stuck in the draining state when a container goes down due to reasons including being unhealthy or crashing, requiring a wait for the container to transition before a new one can come up."
"Amazon Elastic Container Service’s initial setup is a bit difficult."
"There is room for improvement in the licensing costs. There can be better licensing costs."
"My company has faced some stability issues with Amazon EC2 Container Service."
"The solution needs to improve backup and pricing."
"The product lacks some virtualization capabilities, making it an area for improvement where the solution can focus on providing users with more virtualization capabilities related to disk systems."
"It's mostly for lab purposes; we haven't seen a lot of traction in the market from enterprise customers yet."
"We need a backup of production clusters."
"I have issues with the product's interoperability."
"I would like to have more nodes for availability and storage."
"In the next release, I would like to have automatic dynamic scaling, both upscaling and downscaling."
"NKE could benefit from additional features that support more advanced Kubernetes functionalities and configurations."
"Nutanix has limitations compared to VMware, particularly in testing and industry tie-ups with different OEMs. Deploying virtual machines, especially for industrial automation, can be challenging due to compatibility issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon ECS is expensive."
"Amazon Elastic Container Service has a decent price, which is neither cheap nor expensive."
"We have to pay a monthly licensing fee for Amazon EC2 Container Service."
"The tool's cost is good."
"Amazon EC2 Container Service is priced high."
"Amazon EC2 Container Service is an expensive solution."
"The platform is inexpensive."
"I rate the product's pricing an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"I rate NKE's pricing a six out of ten."
"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The product's licenses are included in the software version deployed in our data center."
"While deploying Kubernetes clusters on Nutanix is cost-effective, there may be additional costs for remote branch offices where Kubernetes is less common."
"The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing as four out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Amazon EC2 Container Service?
As for how Amazon Elastic Container Service can be improved, I currently find there is not much lacking since I can identify everything I need from Amazon Elastic Container Service container itself...
What is your primary use case for Amazon EC2 Container Service?
My main use case for Amazon Elastic Container Service is deploying microservices-based applications with different technologies.A quick specific example of a project or application I have deployed ...
What advice do you have for others considering Amazon EC2 Container Service?
I would rate Amazon Elastic Container Service as a nine out of ten.I give it a nine out of ten because, although it is not a direct alternative, it is indirectly an alternative to Kubernetes, which...
What needs improvement with Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?
In terms of features, I cannot comment technically, but the real value is the consolidated out-of-the-box solution that Nutanix offers. Nutanix has built great branding and a lot of credibility and...
What is your primary use case for Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?
I have experience with OpenShift, Kubernetes, and Nutanix, as we are one of the largest Nutanix resellers in the Middle East. We handle Kubernetes on the cloud as well, so we manage most of the Kub...
What advice do you have for others considering Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?
I don't have a technical role, but we are a system integrator, so we sell solutions such as OpenShift and Kubernetes as part of the sales team. We are a reseller called eSky IT, and I serve as the ...
 

Also Known As

Amazon ECS, Amazon EC2 Container Service
Nutanix Karbon
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Ubisoft, GoPro, TIBCO, Remind
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen
Find out what your peers are saying about Red Hat, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Kubernetes and others in Container Management. Updated: June 2026.
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