AWS Lambda vs. Google Kubernetes Engine

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AWS Lambda
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
AWS Lambda is a serverless computing platform that lets users run code without provisioning or managing servers. With Lambda, users can run code for virtually any type of app or backend service—all with zero administration. It takes of requirements to run and scale code with high availability.
$NaN
Per 1 ms
Google Kubernetes Engine
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Google Kubernetes Engine supplies containerized application management powered by Kubernetes which includes Google Cloud services including load balancing, automatic scaling and upgrade, and other Google Cloud services.
$0.04
vCPU-hr Autopilot Mode
Pricing
AWS LambdaGoogle Kubernetes Engine
Editions & Modules
128 MB
$0.0000000021
Per 1 ms
1024 MB
$0.0000000167
Per 1 ms
10240 MB
$0.0000001667
Per 1 ms
Autopilot Mode - 3 year commitment price (USD)
$0
GKE Autopilot Ephemeral Storage Price GB-hr
Autopilot Mode - 1 year commitment price (USD)
$0.0000438
GKE Autopilot Ephemeral Storage Price GB-hr
Autopilot Mode - Regular Price
$0.0000548
GKE Autopilot Ephemeral Storage Price GB-hr
Autopilot Mode - Spot Price
$0.0000548
GKE Autopilot Ephemeral Storage Price GB-hr
Autopilot Mode - Spot Price
$0.0014767
GKE Autopilot Pod Memory Price GB-hr
Autopilot Mode - 3 year commitment price (USD)
$0
GKE Autopilot Pod Memory Price GB-hr
Autopilot Mode - 1 year commitment price (USD)
$0.0039380
GKE Autopilot Pod Memory Price GB-hr
Autopilot Mode - Regular Price
$0.0049225
GKE Autopilot Price GB-hr
Autopilot Mode - Spot Price
$0.0133
GKE Autopilot vCPU Price vCPU-hr
Autopilot Mode - 3 year commitment price (USD)
$0.02
GKE Autopilot vCPU Price vCPU-hr
Autopilot Mode - 1 year commitment price (USD)
$0.0356000
GKE Autopilot vCPU Price vCPU-hr
Autopilot Mode - Regular Price
$0.0445
vCPU Price vCPU-hr
Standard Mode
$0.10
per hour
Cluster Management
$0.10
per cluster per hour
Cluster Management
$74.40 monthly credit
per month per hour
Standard Mode - Free Version
Free
per hour
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AWS LambdaGoogle Kubernetes Engine
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AWS LambdaGoogle Kubernetes Engine
Considered Both Products
AWS Lambda
Chose AWS Lambda
Azure Functions is another product that provides lambda functionality, but the documentation for some of Azure's products is quite hard to read. Additionally, AWS Lambda was one of the first cloud computing products on a large cloud service that implemented lambda functions, so …
Google Kubernetes Engine

No answer on this topic

Features
AWS LambdaGoogle Kubernetes Engine
Access Control and Security
Comparison of Access Control and Security features of Product A and Product B
AWS Lambda
9.0
7 Ratings
2% above category average
Google Kubernetes Engine
-
Ratings
Multiple Access Permission Levels (Create, Read, Delete)8.77 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign-On (SSO)9.33 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
AWS Lambda
5.3
6 Ratings
12% below category average
Google Kubernetes Engine
-
Ratings
Dashboards5.96 Ratings00 Ratings
Standard reports5.55 Ratings00 Ratings
Custom reports4.65 Ratings00 Ratings
Function as a Service (FaaS)
Comparison of Function as a Service (FaaS) features of Product A and Product B
AWS Lambda
8.5
7 Ratings
4% above category average
Google Kubernetes Engine
-
Ratings
Programming Language Diversity9.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Runtime API Authoring8.17 Ratings00 Ratings
Function/Database Integration8.87 Ratings00 Ratings
DevOps Stack Integration8.17 Ratings00 Ratings
Container Management
Comparison of Container Management features of Product A and Product B
AWS Lambda
-
Ratings
Google Kubernetes Engine
8.6
1 Ratings
8% above category average
Security and Isolation00 Ratings7.01 Ratings
Container Orchestration00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Cluster Management00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Storage Management00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Resource Allocation and Optimization00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Discovery Tools00 Ratings6.01 Ratings
Update Rollouts and Rollbacks00 Ratings10.01 Ratings
Self-Healing and Recovery00 Ratings9.01 Ratings
Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AWS LambdaGoogle Kubernetes Engine
Small Businesses
IBM Cloud Functions
IBM Cloud Functions
Score 7.8 out of 10
Portainer
Portainer
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AWS LambdaGoogle Kubernetes Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(52 ratings)
8.0
(8 ratings)
Usability
8.3
(17 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
8.7
(20 ratings)
9.0
(5 ratings)
Professional Services
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AWS LambdaGoogle Kubernetes Engine
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
Lambda excels at event-driven, short-lived tasks, such as processing files or building simple APIs. However, it's less ideal for long-running, computationally intensive, or applications that rely on carrying the state between jobs. Cold starts and constant load can easily balloon the costs.
Read full review
Google
If your application is complex, if it's planet-scale, or if you need autoscaling, then Kubernetes is best suited. If your application is straightforward, you can opt for App Engine or Cloud Run. In many cases, you can prefer to run the cloud on GKE. But once you deploy on Kubernetes, you get the flexibility to try different things. But if you don't seek flexibility, it's not an option for you.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • No provisioning required - we don't have to pay anything upfront
  • Serverless deployment - it gets executed only when request comes and we pay only for the time the request is getting executed
  • Integrates well with AWS CloudWatch triggers so it is easy to setup scheduled tasks like cron jobs
Read full review
Google
  • Engine upgrade rollout strategy - well documented and configurable
  • Integration with other Google Cloud services like the Compute Engine, SaaS databases, and some cloud networking like Cloud Armor
  • Graphical interface for a lot of operations - either for a quick peek/overview or actual work done by administrators and/or developers (via the Google Cloud Console, for example)
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • Developing test cases for Lambda functions can be difficult. For functions that require some sort of input it can be tough to develop the proper payload and event for a test.
  • For the uninitiated, deploying functions with Infrastructure as Code tools can be a challenging undertaking.
  • Logging the output of a function feels disjointed from running the function in the console. A tighter integration with operational logging would be appreciated, perhaps being able to view function logs from the Lambda console instead of having to navigate over to CloudWatch.
  • Sometimes its difficult to determine the correct permissions needed for Lambda execution from other AWS services.
Read full review
Google
  • Support of IPv6.
  • Better GitOps.
  • A "serverless" Kubernetes so we can install Google config connector will be really awesome.
  • Container-native load balancers do not support internal TCP/UDP load balancers or network load balancers.
Read full review
Usability
Amazon AWS
I give it a seven is usability because it's AWS. Their UI's are always clunkier than the competition and their documentation is rather cumbersome. There's SO MUCH to dig through and it's a gamble if you actually end up finding the corresponding info if it will actually help. Like I said before, going to google with a specific problem is likely a better route because AWS is quite ubiquitous and chances are you're not the first to encounter the problem. That being said, using SAM (Serverless application model) and it's SAM Local environment makes running local instances of your Lambdas in dev environments painless and quite fun. Using Nodejs + Lambda + SAM Local + VS Code debugger = AWESOME.
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Google
  • Google Kubernetes Engine has a good UI and documentation that facilitates setup and helps get projects moving along quickly
  • Its built-in logging integrations with StackDriver make it easier to monitor the application and log issues quickly
  • Automated orchestration, deployment, and scaling of nodes and networking are all easily configurable with yaml files
Read full review
Support Rating
Amazon AWS
Amazon consistently provides comprehensive and easy-to-parse documentation of all AWS features and services. Most development team members find what they need with a quick internet search of the AWS documentation available online. If you need advanced support, though, you might need to engage an AWS engineer, and that could be an unexpected (or unwelcome) expense.
Read full review
Google
Very good Kubernetes distribution with a reasonable total price. Integration with storage and load balancer for ingress and services speed up every process deployment.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
AWS Lambda is good for short running functions, and ideally in response to events within AWS. Google App Engine is a more robust environment which can have complex code running for long periods of time, and across more than one instance of hardware. Google App Engine allows for both front-end and back-end infrastructure, while AWS Lambda is only for small back-end functions
Read full review
Google
GKE spins up new nodes a LOT faster than AKS. GKE's auto scaler runs a lot smoother than AKS. GKE has a lot more Kubernetes features baked in natively.
Read full review
Professional Services
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Google
  • When issues came up, we reached out to some folks at GCP and they seemed to be very prompt and attentive to our needs. They were always willing to help and provide additional details or recommendations or links to resources. This kind of support is very helpful as it allows us to navigate GKE with more confidence.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • Positive - Only paying for when code is run, unlike virtual machines where you pay always regardless of processing power usage.
  • Positive - Scalability and accommodating larger amounts of demand is much cheaper. Instead of scaling up virtual machines and increasing the prices you pay for that, you are just increasing the number of times your lambda function is run.
  • Negative - Debugging/troubleshooting, and developing for lambda functions take a bit more time to get used to, and migrating code from virtual machines and normal processes to Lambda functions can take a bit of time.
Read full review
Google
  • Reduced cloud computing costs.
  • Easier management of applications.
  • Extra time investment to learn how to setup applications in Google versus Amazon.
Read full review
ScreenShots