Managed Kubernetes services compared: GKE vs EKS vs AKS

By WalkingTree September 30, 2020

Most managed Kubernetes services have been around for less than three years now, one offering was well ahead of the curve. Kubernetes was originally developed by Google, it’s no surprise that Google Kubernetes Engine predates its competitors. Its largest competitors, AKS and EKS, both launched in 2018, gave GKE a massive head-start that is still noticeable in the platform’s maturity and feature support.

Azure Kubernetes Service and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service were both released in 2018, at a similar time as most other cloud providers, meaning they both have had the same time to mature and gain features. Let’s take a look at the major difference between these 3 Kubernetes services.

Basis of Difference	AKS	EKS	GKE
Kubernetes Versions	1.15, 1.16 – Default 1.17, 1.18 – Preview	1.14, 1.15, 1.16, 1.17 – Default	1.15 – Stable 1.16 – Default 1.17 – Rapid
Bare metal node support	No	Yes	No
Automated control plane upgrades	No, in development	No	Yes
Node auto-repair	Yes	No	Yes
Integrated monitoring	Yes – Azure monitor	No, separate installation needed	Yes – Stackdriver
Serverless compute	Virtual nodes – Azure container instances	Fargate	Cloud run for Anthos
CLI support	Full	Third-party solutions available	Full

By far the easiest to use and a feature-rich solution is the Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE). It offers a rich out-of-the-box experience that gives developers integrated logging and monitoring. AKS also provides a great out of the box experience with powerful development tools. On the other hand, EKS is the weakest Kubernetes offering in terms of feature support and ease of use. Read on to know more about these services.