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Free-Limited
Tool Comparison
Amazon EKS
Run production-grade Kubernetes without managing the control plane.
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At a Glance
| Attribute | Amazon EKS | Kubernetes |
|---|---|---|
| License / Pricing | Free-Limited | Free |
| Type | DevOps | DevOps |
| GitHub Stars | — | — |
| Rating | 4.3/5 | 4.9/5 |
| Key Features | 6 listed | 6 listed |
| Integrations | 7 listed | 9 listed |
| Categories | Container OrchestrationCloud PlatformManaged Kubernetes | Container Orchestration |
Key Features
Amazon EKS
- Fully managed Kubernetes control plane with automated upgrades and patching
- Native integration with IAM for RBAC using IRSA (IAM Roles for Service Accounts)
- Managed node groups and Fargate for serverless pod execution
- EKS Add-ons for CoreDNS, kube-proxy, VPC CNI, and more
- AWS Load Balancer Controller for ALB and NLB provisioning
- EKS Anywhere for running EKS on-premises or on other clouds
Kubernetes
- Automated rollouts and rollbacks with zero downtime
- Horizontal Pod Autoscaling based on CPU, memory, or custom metrics
- Service discovery and load balancing built-in
- Self-healing — restarts failed containers and reschedules on healthy nodes
- Secrets and ConfigMap for decoupled configuration management
- Extensible via Custom Resource Definitions (CRDs) and operators
Real-World Use Cases
Amazon EKS
Production microservices deployment on EKS
Provision an EKS cluster with Terraform using managed node groups
Cost-optimised mixed node configuration
Create a Managed Node Group with on-demand instances for critical workloads
Kubernetes
Blue/green production deployment
Deploy the new version as a separate Deployment (green)
Autoscaling a microservices workload
Deploy microservices with resource requests and limits defined
Integrations
Amazon EKS
kubernetesterraformansibleargo-cdaws-codepipelineaws-secrets-managertrivy
Kubernetes
dockerargo-cdfluxcdprometheusgrafanaterraformansibletrivyfalco
🏆 Which should you choose?
Choose Amazon EKS if…
- → you want a managed or commercial offering with enterprise support and SLAs
Choose Kubernetes if…
- → you need a fully open-source, self-hosted solution with no vendor lock-in