# Amazon EKS vs Azure Kubernetes Service

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/amazon-eks-vs-azure-aks/

Every value below is read from Amazon EKS's and Azure Kubernetes Service's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Amazon EKS | Azure Kubernetes Service |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | No | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | $0.10 per cluster per hour on standard Kubernetes version support — roughly $73 a year before any node runs. Extended version support, for clusters kept on an older Kubernetes release, is $0.60 per cluster per hour. | Not readable. The page names three tiers — Free with no SLA, Standard with one, Premium for long-term version support — and prints no figure against any of them in text, the same way Azure's SLA pages and Amazon's OpenSearch OCU rate do not. |
| Pricing model | Per cluster per hour for the control plane, with the rate rising sixfold if you stay on an unsupported Kubernetes version. Nodes, EKS Auto Mode, add-on capabilities and hybrid nodes are each metered separately on top. | Tiered by what the control plane promises rather than by capacity: Free has no SLA, Standard has one and raises the node limit to 5,000, Premium buys long-term support for older Kubernetes versions. Nodes are billed as ordinary Azure compute underneath. |
| Containers | Supported | Supported |
| Autoscaling | Supported | Supported — Standard tier raises the node limit to 5,000; Free does not say |
| Uptime SLA | 99.95% monthly for the Kubernetes endpoint of a Standard Control Plane cluster, measured in five-minute intervals. | None on the Free tier, stated in those words. Standard adds a financially backed API server uptime SLA and a pod readiness SLA; no percentage is printed on the pricing page. |

## Where they differ

### Free tier

- Amazon EKS: No ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/eks/pricing/))
- Azure Kubernetes Service: Yes ([source](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/kubernetes-service/))

### Entry paid plan

- Amazon EKS: $0.10 per cluster per hour on standard Kubernetes version support — roughly $73 a year before any node runs. Extended version support, for clusters kept on an older Kubernetes release, is $0.60 per cluster per hour. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/eks/pricing/))
- Azure Kubernetes Service: Not readable. The page names three tiers — Free with no SLA, Standard with one, Premium for long-term version support — and prints no figure against any of them in text, the same way Azure's SLA pages and Amazon's OpenSearch OCU rate do not. ([source](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/kubernetes-service/))

### Pricing model

- Amazon EKS: Per cluster per hour for the control plane, with the rate rising sixfold if you stay on an unsupported Kubernetes version. Nodes, EKS Auto Mode, add-on capabilities and hybrid nodes are each metered separately on top. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/eks/pricing/))
- Azure Kubernetes Service: Tiered by what the control plane promises rather than by capacity: Free has no SLA, Standard has one and raises the node limit to 5,000, Premium buys long-term support for older Kubernetes versions. Nodes are billed as ordinary Azure compute underneath. ([source](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/kubernetes-service/))

### Uptime SLA

- Amazon EKS: 99.95% monthly for the Kubernetes endpoint of a Standard Control Plane cluster, measured in five-minute intervals. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/eks/sla/))
- Azure Kubernetes Service: None on the Free tier, stated in those words. Standard adds a financially backed API server uptime SLA and a pod readiness SLA; no percentage is printed on the pricing page. ([source](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/kubernetes-service/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Amazon EKS if A cluster that has to sit inside AWS — IAM on the cluster, VPC networking, EC2 or Fargate nodes — with a 99.95% control-plane SLA measured in five-minute intervals rather than described in prose.

Pick Azure Kubernetes Service if Starting without paying for a control plane at all: the Free tier costs nothing and you pay only for nodes, which is the cheapest way into managed Kubernetes on a hyperscaler.

Consider something else: Amazon EKS — You run many small clusters. $0.10 an hour is about $73 a year each before a node exists, and it becomes $0.60 an hour the moment you fall behind on Kubernetes versions — DigitalOcean charges nothing for the control plane at all.

Consider something else: Azure Kubernetes Service — You want to know what production costs. The Free tier has no SLA in Azure's own words, Standard buys one, and the page prints no figure for either — the tier names render and the prices are filled in by an API after load.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Amazon EKS or Azure Kubernetes Service?**

Amazon EKS: $0.10 per cluster per hour on standard Kubernetes version support — roughly $73 a year before any node runs. Extended version support, for clusters kept on an older Kubernetes release, is $0.60 per cluster per hour.
Azure Kubernetes Service: Not readable. The page names three tiers — Free with no SLA, Standard with one, Premium for long-term version support — and prints no figure against any of them in text, the same way Azure's SLA pages and Amazon's OpenSearch OCU rate do not.

**Free tier: Amazon EKS or Azure Kubernetes Service?**

Amazon EKS: No
Azure Kubernetes Service: Yes

**Should I choose Amazon EKS or Azure Kubernetes Service?**

Pick Amazon EKS if A cluster that has to sit inside AWS — IAM on the cluster, VPC networking, EC2 or Fargate nodes — with a 99.95% control-plane SLA measured in five-minute intervals rather than described in prose.
Pick Azure Kubernetes Service if Starting without paying for a control plane at all: the Free tier costs nothing and you pay only for nodes, which is the cheapest way into managed Kubernetes on a hyperscaler.