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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

"Auto scaling is the best feature found in Amazon Elastic Container Service, and it provides significant cost saving benefits."
"Overall, it is a user-friendly and efficient tool for managing containers."
"In seven years, we have not faced a single second of downtime."
"Scalability and availability are the most valuable features of Amazon Elastic Container Service."
"Amazon Elastic Container Service is more stable."
"The solution is quite scalable and allows you to launch multiple EC2s within minutes."
"I like Amazon EC2 Container Service's elasticity."
"I think this is a good solution with good documentation and is very straightforward to use."
"Nutanix's support is really good."
"The product integrates well with our infrastructure."
"Karbon is embedded in the hypervisor, there are no deployment costs and the administration is via Prism Central."
"I would recommend using this product, it's very good."
"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."
"My experience with Nutanix's technical support is excellent."
"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."
 

Cons

"I think the UI should be enhanced to better visualize things."
"I also believe there are limitations in terms of upgrading. The software has the concept of dedicated servers that you can manage. However, an issue arises when you can't match one operating system with another that you've already purchased. You can't simply merge them; instead, you have to buy a completely new one. This limitation has caused some challenges for us."
"The pricing could be a bit better."
"While it is generally stable, there have been some issues, especially when working on client projects where troubleshooting was needed."
"Sometimes, the instances fail under the ECS container cluster, and we have to manually go and find out the black sheep in the ECS container instance. We had an issue earlier where one of the instances under the ECS container cluster went down, and we were not able to identify that instance. The instance got terminated, but a new instance did not come up. Therefore, I had to manually get that instance up. It could be optimized better. In production, we normally cannot sustain such things. It can be optimized in terms of instances, durability, and serving the requests of customers."
"Since it is a managed service for container orchestration, it may limit our control over certain infrastructure functions."
"The solution can still be expensive, even with per-second billing."
"The services are costly, which is one potential drawback. Additionally, when it comes to new-age services around AI, particularly in the areas of LLMs and genomics, these services are not fully available in our region's availability domain. These are the areas where improvement is required."
"Areas for improvement in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) include upgrading management capabilities and enhancing the user interface for improved usability."
"NKE could benefit from additional features that support more advanced Kubernetes functionalities and configurations."
"I have issues with the product's interoperability."
"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."
"GUI lacks sufficient information to help with understanding the installation and process."
"We need a backup of production clusters."
"I would like to have more nodes for availability and storage."
"There have been challenges related to software bugs, especially regarding long-term licensing options and issues within our customer network."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon Elastic Container Service has a decent price, which is neither cheap nor expensive."
"The pricing of Amazon EC2 Container Service is average."
"We have to pay a monthly licensing fee for Amazon EC2 Container Service."
"I don't know the exact amount we were charged for our use of ECS, but I do know that it can be costly, especially when there is a bug or an error caused by default configurations."
"Amazon EC2 Container Service is an expensive solution."
"Licensing can be purchased directly from AWS or used with existing licenses, depending on the company's preference. The licensing structure is complex and depends on factors such as machine size, number of processors, and Container size. Companies have dedicated staff members managing license considerations full-time to find the most cost-effective options. Also, I have seen some companies opt for a combination of AWS and Azure, using more of Azure for Microsoft licenses due to potentially lower costs compared to AWS."
"Amazon EC2 Container Service is priced high."
"Amazon EC2 Container Service is worth the money."
"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing as four out of ten."
"I rate NKE's pricing a six out of ten."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Government
9%
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
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