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Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) vs. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

    Score8.8 out of 10
    N/AAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. Users can launch instances with a variety of OSs, load them with custom application environments, manage network access permissions, and run images on multiple systems.

    $0.01

    per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis

    Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft's Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) is designed to make deploying and managing containerized applications easy. It offers serverless Kubernetes, an integrated continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) experience, and enterprise-grade security and governance. It allows development and operations teams on a single platform to rapidly build, deliver, and scale applications with confidence.N/A
    Pricing
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    Editions & Modules
    Data Transfer
    $0.00 - $0.09
    per GB
    On-Demand
    $0.0042 - $6.528
    per Hour
    EBS-Optimized Instances
    $0.005
    per IP address with a running instance per hour on a pro rata basis
    Carrier IP Addresses
    $0.005 - $0.10
    T4g Instances
    $0.04
    per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES
    T2, T3 Instances
    $0.05 ($0.096)
    per vCPU-Hour Linux, RHEL, & SLES (Windows)
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    Considered Both Products
    Amazon AWS
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    25 Answers
    90%
    Would buy again
    9 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    96%
    Delivers good value for the price
    26 Answers
    90%
    Delivers good value for the price
    9 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    27 Answers
    80%
    Happy with the feature set
    8 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    22 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    26 Answers
    78%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    Features
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    Feature
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    8.7
    27 Ratings
    5% above category average
    Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    -
    Ratings
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime9.425 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling9.226 Ratings00 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing9.725 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates8.726 Ratings00 Ratings
    Monitoring tools8.125 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images8.625 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating system support8.326 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security controls8.526 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automation8.116 Ratings00 Ratings
    Container Management
    Comparison of Container Management features of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    Feature
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
    -
    Ratings
    Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    7.8
    5 Ratings
    5% below category average
    Security and Isolation00 Ratings8.75 Ratings
    Container Orchestration00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
    Cluster Management00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
    Storage Management00 Ratings7.85 Ratings
    Resource Allocation and Optimization00 Ratings7.95 Ratings
    Discovery Tools00 Ratings7.25 Ratings
    Update Rollouts and Rollbacks00 Ratings7.05 Ratings
    Self-Healing and Recovery00 Ratings8.25 Ratings
    Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging00 Ratings7.55 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    Mirantis Kubernetes Engine
    Score8 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Amazon Elastic Container Service (Amazon ECS)
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    SUSE Rancher
    Score9.4 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (73 ratings)
    8.4
    (10 ratings)
    Usability
    9.2
    (11 ratings)
    7.7
    (5 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.5
    (12 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Amazon AWS
    Suitable for companies that are looking for performance at a competitive price, flexibility to switch instance type even with RI, flexibility to add-on IOPS, option to lower running cost with the regular introduction of new instance type that comes with higher performance but at a lower cost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    AKS works very well for running containerized applications that require high availability and scalability. This includes systems like our HRIS platform and customer-facing web applications. AKS is a good choice when applications are broken into multiple services that need independent scaling and deployment. It provides the flexibility needed to manage these architectures effectively. But for single, low-traffic applications or simple internal tools, AKS can be overkill. For scenarios like that Azure App Service would be better.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Amazon AWS
    • Huge Diverse range of machine shapes are available which cater to our demand.
    • Ability to combine the machines and integrate them with any other service in AWS (Ex: RDS, S3)
    • Handling performance and scalability using auto-scaling, ELB configuration and high performance machine shapes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • AKS makes it easier to replicate data to multiple regions
    • Azure portal make it easier to manage the resources of the organization
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Amazon AWS
    • The choices on AMIs, instance types and additional configuration can be overwhelming for any non-DevOps person.
    • The pricing information should be more clear (than only providing the hourly cost) when launching the instance. AWS DynamoDB gives an estimated monthly cost when creating tables, and I would love to see similar cost estimation showing on EC2 instances individually, as not all developers gets access to the actual bills.
    • The term for reserving instances are at least 12 months. With instance types changing so fast and better instances coming out every other day, it's really hard to commit to an existing instance type for 1 or more years at a time.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • Steep learning curve
    • Expected charges are unclear until you see real production usage
    • Operations teams need to learn an entirely new skill set
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Amazon AWS
    You an start using EC2 instances immediately, is so easy and intuitive to start using them, EC2 has wizard to create the EC2 instances in the web browser or if you are code savvy you can create them with simple line in the CLI or using an SDK. Once you are comfortable using EC2, you can even automate the process.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    As already said, the UI/CLI and even terraform are perfectly fine, but certain details could be documented better. For instance, if I want to secure the whole Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) with my own managed keys, then it is very complex and hard to get there. Not really a single source that gives you the whole picture. Besides that, it is still good to use, in most cases intuitive but details mentioned as above can be tricky.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Amazon AWS
    AWS's support is good overall. Not outstanding, but better than average. We have had very little reason to engage with AWS support but in our limited experience, the staff has been knowledgeable, timely and helpful. The only negative is actually initiating a service request can be a bit of a pain.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Microsoft support was really good, whenever we raise any ticket they come back to us within a couple of hours.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Amazon AWS
    Amazon EC2 is super flexible compared to the PaaS offerings like Heroku Platform and Google App Engine since with Amazon EC2, we have access to the terminal. In terms of pricing, it's basically just the same as Google Compute Engine. The deciding factor is Amazon EC2's native integration with other AWS services since they're all in the same cloud platform.
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    Amazon EKS stacked up very well and had better performance in some areas. However, Azure Kubernetes Service was a better fit given our Azure environment.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Amazon AWS
    • It reduced the need for heavy on-premises instances. Also, it completely eliminates maintenance of the machine. Their SLA criteria are also matching business needs. Overall IAAS is the best option when information is not so crucial to post on the cloud.
    • It makes both horizontal and vertical scaling really easy. This keeps your infrastructure up and running even while you are increasing the capacity or facing more traffic. This leads to having better customer satisfaction.
    • If you do not choose your instance type suitable for your business, it may incur lots of extra costs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Microsoft
    • We had to spend more time on Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) than on AWS and GCP to get our kubernetes cluster up and running
    • The resources on nodes need to be left out unused, so effectively it is wasting money there
    • It definitely made us spend more time into maintaining kubernetes
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots