Amazon EKS vs Amazon Web Services (AWS) (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is our pick, scoring 7.9/10 against 7.5/10 for Amazon EKS on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Integration score (10/10 vs 9/10). For 10 users, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is free, against $73/mo for Amazon EKS; only Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
Amazon EKS
7.5/10
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service is AWS's managed Kubernetes service. It runs the cluster control plane for teams that deploy containers on EC2, Fargate, or their own hardware.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
7.9/10
Amazon's public cloud platform, with over 200 pay-as-you-go services for compute, storage, databases, networking and AI, used by startups through large enterprises and governments.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | A Amazon EKS | |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.5/10 | 7.9/10 |
| Integration | 9/10 | 10/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 4/10 | 5/10 |
| Customization | 9/10 | 10/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Reliability | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Ease of Use | 4/10 | 4/10 |
| Analytics | 7/10 | 8/10 |
| Scalability | 10/10 | 10/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | $73/mo Standard support cluster | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | $73/mo Standard support cluster | Free Free plan |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Cloud Compute | ||
| Managed Kubernetes | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| Uptime SLA | ||
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Serverless Functions | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
Amazon EKS vs Amazon Web Services (AWS) cost by team size
Amazon Web Services (AWS) costs less at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Amazon EKS | Amazon Web Services (AWS) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | $73/moStandard support cluster | FreeFree plan |
| 5 users | $73/moStandard support cluster | FreeFree plan |
| 10 users | $73/moStandard support cluster | FreeFree plan |
| 25 users | $73/moStandard support cluster | FreeFree plan |
| 50 users | $73/moStandard support cluster | FreeFree plan |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Who Amazon EKS and Amazon Web Services (AWS) suit
Amazon Web Services (AWS) fits developers, startups and small business better than Amazon EKS.
| Audience | Amazon EKS | Amazon Web Services (AWS) |
|---|---|---|
| Developers | 6/10Developers get standard upstream Kubernetes, but reviewers say prior Kubernetes experience is needed to use it well. | 9/10The full API, CLI and SDK tooling and the breadth of services suit engineers, though the learning curve is steep. |
| Startups | 5/10There is no upfront commitment, but the roughly $73 monthly fee per cluster and the operational overhead are heavy for small teams. | 8/10The free plan credits and pay-as-you-go billing let startups begin cheaply and scale, which G2 reviewers note. |
| Small Business | 3/10Small businesses face complexity and many separately billed components that suit them poorly compared with simpler PaaS hosting. | 5/10It is affordable at low usage, but complex billing and setup can overwhelm non-technical small teams. |
| Enterprise | 9/10Large organisations get clusters of up to 100K nodes, a 99.99% provisioned tier, FedRAMP, PCI, and HIPAA coverage, and hybrid deployment. | 10/10Enterprise and Unified Operations support tiers and a broad compliance and service range are aimed at large organisations. |
| Government | 7/10EKS is available in AWS GovCloud (US), holds FedRAMP Moderate, and supports air-gapped clusters through EKS Anywhere. | 8/10AWS runs dedicated GovCloud regions, which have their own support pricing. |
| SaaS Companies | 8/10SaaS teams already on AWS can scale container workloads alongside RDS, SQS, and IAM without moving to another platform. | 9/10Multi-region infrastructure and managed services support running production SaaS workloads. |
| IT Teams | 7/10Platform and IT teams get fine-grained control over nodes and networking, but they must own upgrades and add-ons. | Not rated |
Which One Should You Choose?
AWhy choose Amazon EKS
Our data shows no clear advantage over Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Why choose Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Has a free plan (Amazon EKS does not)
- Lower estimated cost for 10 users: Free vs $73/mo
- Higher Integration score (10/10 vs 9/10)
- Higher Cost score (5/10 vs 4/10)
- Better fit for startups (8/10 vs 5/10)
Pros & Cons
AAmazon EKS
Pros
- Scales to clusters of up to 100,000 worker nodes, and reviewers consistently name scalability as its main strength.
- Integrates deeply with AWS: IAM and Pod Identity for pod credentials, ECR, load balancers, VPC Lattice, GuardDuty, and CloudWatch.
- Offers several compute options in one service: EC2 node groups, Fargate serverless pods, Auto Mode, Outposts, Hybrid Nodes, and air-gapped EKS Anywhere.
- Backs the control plane with a financially backed SLA of 99.95%, or 99.99% with Provisioned Control Plane, with credits of up to 100%.
- Holds broad compliance coverage, including SOC, PCI, ISO, FedRAMP Moderate, HITRUST, and HIPAA eligibility.
- Allows version rollback within 7 days of an upgrade at no extra cost.
Cons
- Practitioners call it the least managed of the big three Kubernetes services, because control plane, node, and add-on upgrades are separate manual steps.
- Charges about $73 per month per cluster before any workloads run, and $438 per month once a version falls into extended support. AKS charges no control plane fee on its free tier.
- The default VPC CNI assigns real VPC IPs to pods and can exhaust subnet address space unless IP space is planned in advance.
- Real bills can climb well above estimates because of NAT gateway, cross-AZ transfer, and CloudWatch ingestion costs.
- Reviewers say prior Kubernetes knowledge is needed and the learning curve is steep. Some also note there is no built-in in-console cluster shell like GKE's.
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Pros
- The service catalogue is unusually broad, with over 200 services across 38 regions, so most infrastructure needs can be met on one platform.
- EC2 has a 99.99% region-level SLA with credits of up to 100%, and instances unavailable for more than six minutes in an hour are not billed for that hour.
- The free plan gives up to $200 in credits, and more than 30 always-free services let new teams experiment at low cost.
- Support scales from a $29 minimum up to dedicated Enterprise and Unified Operations tiers for mission-critical workloads.
- G2 rates it 4.4 across more than 17,000 reviews, and reviewers praise its scalability and global reach.
Cons
- Reviewers widely cite a steep learning curve across the console and services.
- Usage pricing is complex and can produce unexpected bills unless spend is monitored closely.
- Paid support is billed as a percentage of total AWS spend, so support costs rise with usage.
- A July 2025 billing console bug showed customers estimated charges in the billions, which hurt trust in its cost tooling.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Amazon Web Services (AWS) scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.9/10 against 7.5/10 for Amazon EKS. The largest gap is in Analytics: 7/10 for Amazon EKS and 8/10 for Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Amazon Web Services (AWS) costs less for 10 users: free on its Free plan, against about $73/mo on its Standard support cluster plan for Amazon EKS, billed monthly.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a free plan; Amazon EKS does not list one.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the better fit for developers: we rate it 9/10 for them, against 6/10 for Amazon EKS.
