Amazon EKS
7.5/10Amazon 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.
Data last updated November 2026 · Our methodology
Overview
Amazon EKS is the managed Kubernetes service from Amazon Web Services. AWS runs the Kubernetes control plane across three Availability Zones and replaces unhealthy control plane nodes. Customers run workloads on EC2 managed node groups, Fargate serverless pods, Outposts, Local Zones, or their own servers through EKS Hybrid Nodes. EKS Auto Mode hands node provisioning, scaling, OS patching, and core add-ons to AWS, for a per-instance fee on top of the EC2 price. Clusters can grow to 100,000 worker nodes. Pricing is pay as you go. Each cluster costs $0.10 per hour while its Kubernetes version is in standard support, which lasts 14 months. After that it costs $0.60 per hour in extended support. Optional Provisioned Control Plane tiers add between $1.65 and $13.90 per hour per cluster and raise the SLA from 99.95 to 99.99 percent. Hybrid Nodes are billed per vCPU-hour. Compute, storage, load balancers, and data transfer are billed separately. EKS Anywhere, which runs on premises, needs an annual subscription per cluster plus an AWS Enterprise Support plan. EKS fits companies that already run on AWS. It works with IAM through Pod Identity, ECR, Elastic Load Balancing, VPC Lattice, CloudWatch, GuardDuty, and AWS Controllers for Kubernetes, and add-ons are available from AWS Marketplace. Compliance coverage includes SOC, PCI, ISO, FedRAMP Moderate, and HIPAA eligibility. The main drawback is operational effort. Reviewers and practitioners describe EKS as less automated than GKE. Teams must upgrade the control plane, node groups, and add-ons as separate steps, and plan VPC IP space so the CNI doesn't exhaust it. Total bills are also hard to forecast once networking, logging, and extended support charges are added.
Our Rating
Who Amazon EKS is best for
Best software for EnterpriseGood fit
Large organisations get clusters of up to 100K nodes, a 99.99% provisioned tier, FedRAMP, PCI, and HIPAA coverage, and hybrid deployment.
SaaS teams already on AWS can scale container workloads alongside RDS, SQS, and IAM without moving to another platform.
EKS is available in AWS GovCloud (US), holds FedRAMP Moderate, and supports air-gapped clusters through EKS Anywhere.
Platform and IT teams get fine-grained control over nodes and networking, but they must own upgrades and add-ons.
Less suited
Developers get standard upstream Kubernetes, but reviewers say prior Kubernetes experience is needed to use it well.
There is no upfront commitment, but the roughly $73 monthly fee per cluster and the operational overhead are heavy for small teams.
Small businesses face complexity and many separately billed components that suit them poorly compared with simpler PaaS hosting.
Pros & Cons
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.
Key Features
Amazon EKS Pricing
Standard support cluster
or $876/year
- 99.95% monthly uptime SLA
- No minimum fee or upfront commitment
- Control plane runs across three Availability Zones
- Worker node compute, storage, and networking billed separately
- $0.10 per cluster per hour, billed only while the cluster exists
- Covers the first 14 months after a Kubernetes version is released
Extended support cluster
or $5,256/year
- Not available for local clusters on Outposts
- Version use for up to 26 months from release
- Adds 12 more months of support after standard support ends
- $0.60 per cluster per hour ($0.10 standard plus $0.50 extended)
EKS Anywhere Enterprise Subscription (1-year)
or $24,000/year
- Extended Kubernetes version support
- Flat price per cluster, regardless of cluster size
- Support for licensed on-premises EKS Anywhere clusters
- 3-year term costs $18,000 per cluster per year ($1,500 per month)
- Curated Packages for load balancing, observability, and autoscaling
- Requires AWS Enterprise Support or Enterprise On-Ramp, billed separately
Frequently Asked Questions
Each cluster costs $0.10 per hour, about $73 per month, while its Kubernetes version is in standard support. That rises to $0.60 per hour in extended support. Worker nodes, Fargate pods, storage, and networking are billed separately, and there are no minimum fees or upfront commitments.
The standard control plane is backed by a 99.95% monthly uptime SLA, and Provisioned Control Plane tiers by a 99.99% SLA. Credits are 10%, 25%, or 100% of the affected control plane charges, depending on how far uptime fell. Claims must be filed through AWS Support within two billing cycles.
Standard support lasts 14 months after a version's release. Extended support adds 12 more months at an extra $0.50 per cluster-hour, so a version can be used for up to 26 months. AWS supports three stable versions at a time.
Yes. EKS Hybrid Nodes attach on-premises machines to an EKS cluster for a per-vCPU-hour fee. EKS Anywhere runs customer-managed clusters, including air-gapped ones. Its support subscription costs $24,000 per cluster per year on a 1-year term, or $18,000 per year on a 3-year term, and requires AWS Enterprise Support.
Auto Mode has AWS provision, scale, and patch nodes and manage core add-ons. It is billed per second on top of EC2 prices, at a rate that varies by instance type. Nodes are replaced after 14 days by default, which can be configured up to 21 days. SSH and SSM access to these instances is not allowed.
AWS lists SOC, PCI, ISO, FedRAMP Moderate, and HITRUST CSF certifications for EKS, and the service is HIPAA eligible. It is also available in AWS GovCloud (US) and the China Regions.
Clusters and add-ons can be managed through the EKS API, the AWS CLI, eksctl, CloudFormation, the AWS SDKs, and third-party infrastructure-as-code tools. Practitioners commonly use Terraform to automate upgrades.
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Ranked near Amazon EKS in Hosting & Infrastructure
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