Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service vs Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
aws.amazon.com
Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
docs.mirantis.comSide by side
| Figure | Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service | Mirantis Kubernetes Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $0.10/mo | — |
| Free plan | — | — |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 6 | 1 |
| Spec score · Container Orchestration Software | 8.3 (#4) | 8.1 (#8) |
| 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. | MKE 4 is an enterprise Kubernetes platform built on the open-source k0s distribution. |
| Support | AWS lists technical support for service-related technical issues and says it is unavailable under the Basic Support Plan. | Mirantis offers a choice of 24/7 proactive support or managed services for MKE 4. |
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.
Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
Mirantis Kubernetes Engine (MKE 4) is a self-hosted enterprise Kubernetes platform built on the open-source k0s distribution. It supports deployment across public and private clouds, multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments, and bare-metal infrastructure. Teams manage cluster lifecycle with the mkectl command-line tool and a declarative mke4.yaml configuration file; standardized APIs and GitOps-based lifecycle management are also listed. A cluster combines k0s, a container network interface, the MKE control plane, system services, and user services. Calico is installed by default, with other network interface options supported. The web dashboard manages Kubernetes resources in an MKE-managed cluster. Backup and restore are supported, and the CLI upgrade process includes automated backups. Authentication through Dex supports OIDC, SAML, and LDAP, but not MFA. MKE 4 requires x86_64 and Linux manager/control-plane nodes; supported operating systems include specified Ubuntu, RHEL, and Rocky Linux versions, plus Windows Server worker nodes. A valid license is required, and a trial license is available on request. Mirantis offers 24/7 proactive support or managed services.