Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service vs Docker Swarm
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
aws.amazon.com
Docker Swarm
docs.docker.comSide by side
| Figure | Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service | Docker Swarm |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.10/mo | $9/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 5 |
| Spec score · Container Orchestration Software | 8.3 (#4) | 8.3 (#5) |
| Purpose | Amazon EKS is a managed Kubernetes service for building, running, and scaling production-ready applications across environments. | Swarm mode is an advanced feature for managing a cluster of Docker daemons and is intended for production runtime environments. |
Plans
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
- Standard Kubernetes version support$0.10 a month
- Extended Kubernetes version support$0.60 a month
- Provisioned Control Plane XL$1.65 a month
- Provisioned Control Plane 2XL$3.40 a month
- Provisioned Control Plane 4XL$6.90 a month
- Provisioned Control Plane 8XL$13.90 a month
Docker Swarm
- Docker PersonalFree
- Docker Swarm modeFree
- Docker Pro$9 a month
- Docker Team$15 a month
- Docker Business$24 a month
In their own words
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) is a managed Kubernetes service for building, running, and scaling production applications across cloud, on-premises, and edge environments. It manages Kubernetes control-plane availability across three AWS Availability Zones and replaces unhealthy control-plane nodes automatically. Applications can run on Amazon EC2 or AWS Fargate. EKS Auto Mode automates provisioning for compute, storage, and networking, along with scaling, operating-system patching, and add-on management. Hybrid deployments can use Hybrid Nodes, AWS Outposts, or EKS Anywhere. EKS remains compatible with upstream Kubernetes applications and tools, and integrates with IAM role-based access control, VPC pod networking, and Application Load Balancers. EKS Capabilities provides managed Argo CD for GitOps across clusters. There are no minimum fees or upfront commitments, but worker resources and related traffic are billed separately. Standard version support is $0.10 a month, billed per cluster hour.
Docker Swarm
Docker Swarm is an open-source, free orchestration mode built into Docker Engine for managing clusters of Docker daemons in production. It is controlled through the Docker CLI and needs no separate orchestration software. Managers maintain a declarative desired state covering replica counts, networks, storage resources, and exposed ports. Services can be replicated across selected nodes or run globally with one task on every node. Overlay networks connect daemons, while an ingress network provides load balancing. Swarm assigns DNS names and supports virtual-IP load balancing or DNS round-robin discovery. Updates can roll out incrementally and roll back to an earlier service version. Nodes authenticate and encrypt communications with mutual TLS, requiring at least TLS 1.2. Overlay application traffic is not encrypted by default; IPsec encryption can reduce performance. Swarm is self-hosted, supports rolling updates and policy controls, and lacks multi-cluster management and autoscaling.