Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service vs k0s
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
aws.amazon.com
k0s
k0sproject.ioSide by side
| Figure | Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service | k0s |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.10/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 1 |
| Spec score · Container Orchestration Software | 8.3 (#4) | 7.9 (#11) |
| Headquarters | Seattle, Washington, United States | Campbell, California, United States |
| Purpose | Amazon EKS is a managed Kubernetes service for building, running, and scaling production-ready applications across environments. | k0s is a Kubernetes distribution for deploying workloads across public and private cloud, on-premises, bare metal, edge, and IoT environments. |
| Support | AWS lists technical support for service-related technical issues and says it is unavailable under the Basic Support Plan. | The project identifies Mirantis as offering technical support, professional services, training, and support subscriptions with prioritized phone, web, and email support. |
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
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.
k0s
k0s is a free, self-hosted Kubernetes distribution for deploying workloads across public and private clouds, on-premises systems, bare metal, edge locations, and IoT environments. It comes as a single binary and needs no host operating-system components beyond the kernel. The project describes it as CNCF-certified Kubernetes and lists support for x86-64, ARM64, ARMv7, and RISC-V. Installation options include single-node, multi-node, air-gapped, and Docker methods. The k0sctl tool supports cluster lifecycle tasks such as upgrades and backup and restore. Kube-Router is the default networking option; custom CNI plugins are supported, with Calico listed as a preconfigured alternative. Datastore choices include etcd, SQLite, MySQL, and PostgreSQL. Listed security features include kube-bench, RBAC, network policies, control plane isolation, and OpenID provider support. Minimum requirements are 1 vCPU and 1 GB RAM. The project aims to keep the base versatile by limiting bundled add-ons such as ingress, service meshes, and storage. Mirantis offers support services and subscriptions.