Exoscale Scalable Kubernetes Service vs Kubernetes
Exoscale Scalable Kubernetes Service
exoscale.com
Kubernetes
kubernetes.ioSide by side
| Figure | Exoscale Scalable Kubernetes Service | Kubernetes |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 2 | 1 |
| Spec score · Container Orchestration Software | 7.9 (#10) | 8.1 (#7) |
| Founded | 2011 | 2014 |
| Integrations | Exoscale lists Kubernetes Cloud Controller Manager, Karpenter, Terraform, Packer, Vault, Pulumi, and Crossplane among its integrations. | Kubernetes lets users integrate logging, monitoring, and alerting solutions, and its defaults are optional and pluggable. |
| Networking | SKS integrates Network Load Balancers for ingress traffic and supports Kubernetes-compatible instance pools. | It gives Pods IP addresses and a shared DNS name for a set of Pods, and can load-balance across them. |
| Purpose | SKS is a managed Kubernetes service for deploying, scaling, and hosting containerized applications in Europe. | Kubernetes is an open source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. |
| Security controls | Clusters are provisioned with minimal exposure by default, and users control authentication, network policies, and role-based access. | Security mechanisms include Secrets, Pod security standards, RuntimeClasses, network policies, admission controllers, and audit logging. |
| Storage | The Exoscale CSI driver supports attaching block or object storage for stateful workloads. | Kubernetes can automatically mount storage from local systems, public cloud providers, or network storage systems such as iSCSI or NFS. |
| Support | All Exoscale customers receive included ticket support, with paid support plans offering faster response times and additional channels or coverage. | The Kubernetes project says Kubernetes services, support, and tools are widely available. |
Plans
Exoscale Scalable Kubernetes Service
- Starter ClusterFree
- Pro ClusterPrice not published
In their own words
Exoscale Scalable Kubernetes Service
Exoscale Scalable Kubernetes Service (SKS) is a managed Kubernetes service for deploying, scaling and hosting containerized applications in Europe. It is available through web and APIs, with a free Starter Cluster and a Pro Cluster billed hourly; the Pro price is not shown as a numeric amount. Exoscale operates the control plane and provides upgrades, and says fully managed clusters can start in less than one minute. Starter includes a managed control plane, CLI, API, Terraform integration and automatic control-plane patch upgrades. Pro adds a highly available control plane, etcd backups, a 99.95% SLA and Karpenter autoscaling. Network Load Balancers handle ingress, while the CSI driver attaches block or object storage for stateful workloads. Authentication, network policies, role-based access and Kubernetes Audit provide control and visibility. Every release passes CNCF conformance tests. SKS is vanilla Kubernetes, so monitoring, GitOps and security tools are not installed by default. Customers receive ticket support, with paid plans offering faster responses and additional coverage.
Kubernetes
Kubernetes is an open-source system for automating deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It supports stateless, stateful, and data-processing workloads, and can run locally, in a cloud, or in a datacenter; users can also choose a managed service rather than operate a cluster themselves. It coordinates gradual updates while monitoring application health and can roll back a change if something goes wrong. Pods receive IP addresses and groups of Pods can share a DNS name, with load balancing across them. Kubernetes can mount storage from local, public-cloud, or network systems such as iSCSI or NFS. Secrets and configuration can be updated without rebuilding images. Scaling can be manual or automatic based on CPU use. Security mechanisms include Secrets, Pod security standards, RuntimeClasses, network policies, admission controllers, and audit logging. Kubernetes is free, with a listed plan price of free. It does not include application-level services such as databases, message buses, caches, or cluster storage systems.