What is Amazon EKS used for?

Amazon EKS is AWS's managed Kubernetes service, running the control plane and worker nodes for container workloads on AWS and, optionally, on-premises. It is a good fit for running containerized microservices on AWS, standardizing Kubernetes across cloud and on-premises, and migrating self-managed clusters to a managed control plane.

How much does Amazon EKS cost?

Amazon EKS is a paid product with no free plan. Pay-as-you-go. A cluster costs $0.10 per hour under standard support and $0.60 per hour under extended support; Hybrid Nodes are billed at $0.02 per vCPU hour.

Is Amazon EKS open source?

No. Amazon EKS is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to Amazon EKS include Kubernetes, K3s and Rancher.

Can I self-host Amazon EKS?

Yes. Although Amazon EKS is closed source, it can be self-hosted on your own servers, and the vendor also offers a hosted version.

What are some alternatives to Amazon EKS?

Amazon EKS competes with Google Kubernetes Engine, Azure Kubernetes Service and DigitalOcean. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Amazon EKS alternatives.

Amazon EKS: features, pricing and alternatives

About Amazon EKS

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) is Amazon Web Services' hosted way of running Kubernetes. AWS operates the Kubernetes control plane, and customers run their containerized applications on worker nodes, so teams can use standard Kubernetes tooling without building and maintaining the control plane themselves.

AWS describes EKS as a managed service that is certified Kubernetes conformant and that can run Kubernetes both on AWS and on-premises. Because it belongs to the AWS ecosystem, it works with services for identity, networking, load balancing and monitoring, and workloads can run on EC2 instances or serverless compute.

EKS is a proprietary AWS service. It suits platform and DevOps teams that want upstream-compatible Kubernetes with AWS-managed operations, particularly those already running infrastructure on AWS or needing a consistent Kubernetes setup across cloud and on-premises environments.

Key features

Managed Kubernetes control plane
Certified Kubernetes conformant clusters
Runs on AWS and on-premises
Worker nodes on EC2 or serverless compute
Integration with AWS identity and networking
Standard Kubernetes tooling and APIs

Good fit for

→Running containerized microservices on AWS
→Standardizing Kubernetes across cloud and on-premises
→Migrating self-managed clusters to a managed control plane

Tags: kubernetes; aws; containers; managed-kubernetes; orchestration; devops

Amazon EKS: questions and answers

What is Amazon EKS used for?: Amazon EKS is AWS's managed Kubernetes service, running the control plane and worker nodes for container workloads on AWS and, optionally, on-premises. It is a good fit for running containerized microservices on AWS, standardizing Kubernetes across cloud and on-premises, and migrating self-managed clusters to a managed control plane.
How much does Amazon EKS cost?: Amazon EKS is a paid product with no free plan. Pay-as-you-go. A cluster costs $0.10 per hour under standard support and $0.60 per hour under extended support; Hybrid Nodes are billed at $0.02 per vCPU hour.
Is Amazon EKS open source?: No. Amazon EKS is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to Amazon EKS include Kubernetes, K3s and Rancher.
Can I self-host Amazon EKS?: Yes. Although Amazon EKS is closed source, it can be self-hosted on your own servers, and the vendor also offers a hosted version.
What are some alternatives to Amazon EKS?: Amazon EKS competes with Google Kubernetes Engine, Azure Kubernetes Service and DigitalOcean. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Amazon EKS alternatives.