Multi-Cloud Kubernetes Compare

Kubernetes Service Comparison

{
  "features": [
    {
      "feature": "Managed Kubernetes service",
      "category": "Core Service",
      "aws": "Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)",
      "azure": "Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)",
      "gcp": "Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Control plane cost",
      "category": "Core Service",
      "aws": "$0.10/hr per cluster (~$73/mo)",
      "azure": "Free tier available; Standard tier $0.10/hr per cluster",
      "gcp": "Free tier (1 zonal cluster); Standard tier $0.10/hr per cluster"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Release channels",
      "category": "Core Service",
      "aws": "Extended support and standard support; manual version selection",
      "azure": "Rapid, Stable, and Long-Term Support channels",
      "gcp": "Rapid, Regular, and Stable release channels"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Node autoscaling",
      "category": "Scaling",
      "aws": "Cluster Autoscaler; Karpenter (recommended)",
      "azure": "Cluster Autoscaler (built-in)",
      "gcp": "Cluster Autoscaler; Node Auto-Provisioning (NAP)"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Serverless pods",
      "category": "Scaling",
      "aws": "AWS Fargate profiles for serverless pod execution",
      "azure": "Virtual Nodes (ACI-based); KEDA for event-driven scaling",
      "gcp": "GKE Autopilot mode (fully managed node infrastructure)"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Max nodes per cluster",
      "category": "Scaling",
      "aws": "Up to 5,000 nodes per cluster (with quota increase)",
      "azure": "Up to 5,000 nodes per cluster across node pools",
      "gcp": "Up to 15,000 nodes per cluster"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Spot/preemptible nodes",
      "category": "Scaling",
      "aws": "Spot Instances via managed node groups or Karpenter",
      "azure": "Spot VMs via Spot node pools with eviction policies",
      "gcp": "Spot VMs (preemptible) in node pools; Autopilot Spot Pods"
    },
    {
      "feature": "GPU support",
      "category": "Compute",
      "aws": "NVIDIA GPU instances (P4, P5, G5); EKS GPU AMIs; device plugin",
      "azure": "NVIDIA GPU VMs (NC, ND, NV series); AKS GPU node pools",
      "gcp": "NVIDIA GPU node pools (T4, A100, L4, H100); GKE GPU sharing"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Windows containers",
      "category": "Compute",
      "aws": "Windows node groups supported; Windows Server 2019/2022 AMIs",
      "azure": "Windows node pools natively supported; Windows Server 2019/2022",
      "gcp": "Windows Server node pools supported; Windows Server LTSC"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Node pools",
      "category": "Compute",
      "aws": "Managed node groups with launch templates; self-managed node groups",
      "azure": "System and user node pools; multiple OS types per cluster",
      "gcp": "Node pools with auto-upgrade and auto-repair; surge upgrades"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Network policies",
      "category": "Networking",
      "aws": "Calico via EKS add-on; VPC CNI network policies",
      "azure": "Azure Network Policies or Calico; Azure CNI overlay",
      "gcp": "Dataplane V2 (Cilium-based) with native network policy enforcement"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Ingress controller",
      "category": "Networking",
      "aws": "AWS Load Balancer Controller (ALB Ingress); NLB support",
      "azure": "Application Gateway Ingress Controller (AGIC); Web App Routing",
      "gcp": "GKE Ingress (HTTP/S Load Balancer); Gateway API support"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Service mesh integration",
      "category": "Networking",
      "aws": "AWS App Mesh; Istio via EKS add-on",
      "azure": "Istio-based service mesh add-on; Open Service Mesh (retired)",
      "gcp": "Anthos Service Mesh (managed Istio); Traffic Director"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Monitoring",
      "category": "Observability",
      "aws": "CloudWatch Container Insights; Prometheus via AMP",
      "azure": "Azure Monitor Container Insights; Managed Prometheus and Grafana",
      "gcp": "Cloud Monitoring dashboards; Managed Prometheus; Cloud Logging"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Managed add-ons",
      "category": "Observability",
      "aws": "CoreDNS, kube-proxy, VPC CNI, EBS CSI as managed add-ons",
      "azure": "CoreDNS, kube-proxy managed; monitoring and policy add-ons",
      "gcp": "CoreDNS, kube-proxy, GCE PD CSI, Config Connector as managed add-ons"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Multi-cluster management",
      "category": "Multi-Cluster",
      "aws": "EKS Connector for external cluster registration; no native fleet management",
      "azure": "Azure Arc-enabled Kubernetes; Fleet Manager for multi-cluster orchestration",
      "gcp": "Anthos / GKE Fleet for multi-cluster management; Config Sync"
    },
    {
      "feature": "RBAC integration",
      "category": "Security",
      "aws": "IAM roles for service accounts (IRSA); EKS Pod Identity; aws-auth ConfigMap",
      "azure": "Azure AD (Entra ID) integration; Azure RBAC for Kubernetes authorization",
      "gcp": "IAM Workload Identity; Google Groups for RBAC; GKE RBAC"
    },
    {
      "feature": "Secrets management",
      "category": "Security",
      "aws": "AWS Secrets Manager CSI driver; KMS envelope encryption for etcd",
      "azure": "Azure Key Vault CSI driver; etcd encryption with customer-managed keys",
      "gcp": "Secret Manager CSI driver; application-layer secrets encryption with Cloud KMS"
    }
  ]
}