Deploying containerized applications on AWS involves a critical decision: Should you manage Kubernetes yourself on EC2 instances, or leverage Amazon’s managed Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)? This choice significantly affects your organization’s operational efficiency, cost management, and scalability. By exploring the key differences between self-managed Kubernetes and EKS, you can make an informed decision tailored to your specific needs. Let’s dive in and progressively uncover what truly matters.
Choosing the right Kubernetes Deployment in 2025
Choosing the right Kubernetes deployment method in 2025 is essential for optimizing resource utilization, ensuring high availability, and maintaining security standards. Missteps in this decision can lead to increased operational overhead, higher costs, and potential security vulnerabilities.
This blog aims to clarify the distinctions between self-managed Kubernetes and Amazon EKS, enabling you to select the solution that aligns with your organization’s goals and capabilities as collabnix is heavily involved in pushing companies to having a smooth operational efficiency, collabnix is a strong advocate for including kuberenetes orchestration in workflows as needed by Devops engineers and aspiring tech enthusiast.
Kubernetes and Amazon EKS
Kubernetes is an open-source platform originally developed by Google. It is designed to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containerized applications. It organizes containers into logical units, facilitating streamlined management and discovery.
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) is AWS’s fully managed Kubernetes service. EKS simplifies running Kubernetes on AWS by managing the underlying infrastructure, including the control plane. This reduces the operational burden on your development teams, ensuring that your Kubernetes clusters are highly available, secure, and seamlessly integrated with other AWS services.
Also Read: Is Kubernetes Similar to AWS? A Comparative Analysis
Solving Deployment Challenges: EKS vs. Self-Managed Kubernetes on AWS
AWS provides two primary avenues for running Kubernetes:
- Amazon EKS: A managed service where AWS oversees the Kubernetes control plane, including critical components like etcd and the API server. EKS integrates seamlessly with AWS services such as IAM for enhanced security and offers automated updates and patching, minimizing your operational workload.
- Self-Managed Kubernetes: Deploying Kubernetes on EC2 instances grants you full control over the cluster configuration, management, and scaling. This approach requires significant manual setup and ongoing maintenance, which can be resource-intensive.
So are you implementing Kubernetes in 2025? If yes, you need to consider these:
- 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗿𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲
- 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 & 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗟𝗼𝗴𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴
- 𝗦𝗲𝗰𝗿𝗲𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
- 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗲 𝗕𝗮𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗔𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗹
- 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝗜𝗻𝗴𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗦𝗦𝗟 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴
Also Read: How to Run Kubernetes on AWS
Addressing Management and Operational Overhead
With EKS, AWS handles the Kubernetes control plane, ensuring high availability and managing tasks like patching and upgrades. This allows your team to concentrate on developing applications rather than managing infrastructure.
In contrast, self-managed Kubernetes requires your team to handle the setup and maintenance of both the control plane and worker nodes. Tools like kops and
kubectl can assist are essential for managing Kubernetes clusters, but they demand deep Kubernetes expertise and continuous management efforts, potentially diverting resources from core business activities.
Streamlining Integration with AWS Services
EKS offers out-of-the-box integration with a suite of AWS services, including Elastic Load Balancer (ELB) for traffic distribution, Identity and Access Management (IAM) for security, and CloudWatch for monitoring. These integrations enhance operational efficiency and security without additional configuration.
On the other hand, self-managed Kubernetes requires manual integration with AWS services, which can be time-consuming and may not offer the same level of seamless functionality as EKS.
Cost Efficiency: Balancing Fees and Savings
EKS incurs a management fee of $0.10 per hour per cluster, approximately $73 per month in the U.S. East (Ohio) region. Additionally, you pay for the underlying worker nodes. While this cost may add up for multiple small clusters, it becomes negligible for larger, production-grade clusters with extensive resources.
Self-managed Kubernetes eliminates the EKS management fee but requires you to pay for both worker nodes and control plane nodes. The total cost varies based on instance types and cluster size, and it doesn’t account for the additional operational overhead and potential need for specialized personnel. However, it can offer cost savings for organizations with the capacity to manage the infrastructure efficiently.
Enhancing Scalability and Availability
EKS leverages AWS’s robust infrastructure, providing superior scalability and high availability out of the box. It automatically distributes control plane components across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) and can scale the data plane effortlessly using options like EKS-managed node groups or AWS Fargate for serverless compute.
Self-managed Kubernetes can achieve similar scalability and availability, but it requires meticulous configuration and management to ensure redundancy and resilience. Setting up a highly available cluster across multiple AZs is more complex and resource-intensive.
Ensuring Security and Simplifying Updates
Security is paramount for any Kubernetes deployment. With EKS, AWS manages the security of the control plane, ensuring it is up-to-date and protected against vulnerabilities. For the data plane, EKS offers multiple options:
- EKS-managed node groups: Simplify updates and patching with just a few clicks in the AWS console.
- Self-managed nodes: Require you to handle all security updates and maintenance.
- AWS Fargate: Provides a secure, serverless environment where AWS manages the underlying infrastructure.
In contrast, self-managed Kubernetes places the entire responsibility of securing and updating both the control and data planes on your organization, increasing the risk of misconfigurations and security gaps.
Also Read: How to deploy your AWS EKS CLUSTER WITH TERRAFORM
Advantages and Disadvantages: Making an Informed Choice
Amazon EKS
- Pros:
- Unify how you run applications across cloud and on-premises environments with Amazon EKS to accelerate your modernization initiatives.
- Deploy secure, scalable, and high-performing LLMs to drive generative AI applications for both training and inference, fully leveraging the capabilities of AWS infrastructure, including graphics processing unit (GPU) instances.
- Create applications that automatically scale up and down and run in a highly available configuration across multiple Availability Zones (AZs) with out-of-the-box networking and security integrations.
- Use Amazon EKS to build standardized applications management environments for your development teams by seamlessly combining Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) technology with AWS services.
- Build scalable, high-performing, and cost-efficient data platforms on Amazon EKS with AWS-managed services or open source tools.
- Reduces operational overhead by managing the control plane.
- Seamlessly integrates with other AWS services.
- Ensures high availability and automatic scaling.
- Enhances security with managed updates and patching.
- Cons:
- Additional cost per cluster.
- Availability limited to specific AWS regions.
- Slower release cycle for Kubernetes updates.
Self-Managed Kubernetes
- Pros:
- Complete control and customization of the Kubernetes environment.
- Potential cost savings by avoiding management fees., such is seen here when With the recreation.gov Kubernetes platform, changes can be implemented in about 30 minutes, compared to the multiple hours or even days legacy government applications require to review the code, get approval, and deploy the fix. Recreation.gov deploys to production on average 10 times a day. With monitoring, security, and logging built in, developers can create and publish new services to production within a week. Additionally, Folkoff says, “supporting the large, existing monoliths in the government is extremely expensive,” and migrating into a more modern platform has resulted in perhaps 50% cost savings.
- Flexibility to deploy across multiple cloud providers or on-premises.
- Opportunities for deeper learning and expertise development.
- Instead of waiting hours or days to be able to compute, teams can get access instantaneously. Clinical validations used to take up to 10 hours at a company called babylon; now they are done in under 20 minutes. The portability of the cloud native platform has also enabled Babylon to expand into other countries which is a real live use case that kubernetes implementation showed this grwat impact in time reduction.
- Cons:
- Hard Learning Curve: Kubernetes demands a deep understanding of microservices architecture, containers, networking, and cloud-native technologies, making it challenging for newcomers and even seasoned professionals.
- Overall Complexity: The intricate setup and configuration of Kubernetes, coupled with its many moving parts and lack of a user-friendly graphical interface, make it difficult to manage effectively.
- Expensive Talent and Unpredictable Cloud Costs: Hiring experienced Kubernetes engineers is costly, and managing Kubernetes can lead to unpredictable cloud expenses due to resource-intensive operations and the potential for cost spikes.
- Risk of Misconfiguration: The complexity of Kubernetes increases the likelihood of misconfigurations, which can result in security vulnerabilities and performance issues.
- Operational Overhead: Running Kubernetes requires significant operational effort and resources, especially when not leveraging managed services, adding to the overall burden on IT teams.
Choosing the Right Solution for Your Organization
The decision between Amazon EKS and self-managed Kubernetes depends on your organization’s specific requirements, resources, and expertise. If you seek a managed solution that minimizes operational overhead and integrates seamlessly with AWS services, EKS is likely the better choice. It is especially suitable for larger organizations with production workloads that can absorb the management fees.
Conversely, if your organization requires extensive customization, seeks cost savings by managing infrastructure directly, or operates in a multi-cloud or hybrid environment, self-managed Kubernetes might be more appropriate. However, be prepared to invest in the necessary expertise and resources to manage and secure the cluster effectively.
Also Read: Cloud or DevOps
Conclusion: Aligning Kubernetes Deployment with Business Objectives
Both Kubernetes and Amazon EKS offer powerful solutions for container orchestration, each with its own set of advantages and trade-offs. EKS provides a streamlined, managed experience with robust integration and high availability, ideal for organizations looking to reduce operational complexities. On the other hand, self-managed Kubernetes offers unparalleled control and flexibility, catering to those willing to handle the additional management responsibilities for greater customization and potential cost savings.
Ultimately, COLLABNIX team recommends that the choice between EKS and self-managed Kubernetes should be guided by your organization’s specific needs, budget, and technical capabilities. By thoroughly understanding the differences and evaluating the pros and cons of each option, you can ensure that your Kubernetes deployment aligns perfectly with your business objectives, solving your deployment challenges effectively.
References
- AWS Fargate, Serverless compute for containers.
- Kubernetes, Production-Grade Container Orchestration.
