EKS, AKS, or GKE? A Production-Based Breakdown of All Three Managed Kubernetes Services
Engineers who have run production workloads on Amazon EKS, Microsoft AKS, and Google GKE say all three pass Kubernetes conformance tests but differ significantly in day-to-day operations. GKE, built by Kubernetes' creators, offers the most automated upgrade experience and is recommended for teams wanting minimal operational overhead. EKS charges around $72 per month per cluster for control plane access and suits organizations deeply invested in the AWS ecosystem, while AKS offers a free standard control plane and strong integration with Microsoft's Entra ID for enterprise users. Networking is identified as the sharpest point of divergence, with each platform taking a different approach to pod IP management and cluster connectivity. The authors conclude that control plane fees are largely negligible, and the true cost differences lie in node efficiency, autoscaling behavior, and engineering hours spent on maintenance.
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