Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) vs. Kubernetes

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft'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
Kubernetes
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
Kubernetes is an open-source container cluster manager.N/A
Pricing
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)Kubernetes
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)Kubernetes
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
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)Kubernetes
Considered Both Products
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Chose Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
The ability to create new instances (i.e. elastic provisioning) is probably the fastest with Azure Kubernetes Service compared to the alternatives that I have looked at. From a pricing perspective, Microsoft always seems to find a way to be more competitive in this area, and …
Chose Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Due to cost efficiency. And using AZURE cloud for other services as well. Azure Kubernetes Service is more suitable to configure CI/CD pipelines. With a facility of automated or One click deployment and integration of the application. As compared with other Kubernetes Services …
Chose Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
Integration with other standard azure services make Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) case strong. As we use most of the azure services it is easy to integrate. It is difficult to use EKS as the user interface is not intuitive and difficult to integrate. The services need to be …
Kubernetes
Chose Kubernetes
I didn't have too much experience or exposure to OpenShift but I do remember that in certain areas our organization found Kubernetes to be more useful and met our needs in comparison to OpenShift. Although I can't compare, I think it's easier to customize Kubernetes because of …
Features
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)Kubernetes
Container Management
Comparison of Container Management features of Product A and Product B
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
5.6
1 Ratings
35% below category average
Kubernetes
8.9
4 Ratings
11% above category average
Security and Isolation8.01 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Container Orchestration8.01 Ratings9.64 Ratings
Cluster Management2.01 Ratings9.64 Ratings
Storage Management3.01 Ratings8.04 Ratings
Resource Allocation and Optimization9.01 Ratings8.34 Ratings
Discovery Tools4.01 Ratings8.94 Ratings
Update Rollouts and Rollbacks1.01 Ratings8.94 Ratings
Self-Healing and Recovery7.01 Ratings9.03 Ratings
Analytics, Monitoring, and Logging8.01 Ratings8.74 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)Kubernetes
Small Businesses
Portainer
Portainer
Score 9.4 out of 10
Portainer
Portainer
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
Red Hat OpenShift
Red Hat OpenShift
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)Kubernetes
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(6 ratings)
8.7
(19 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
7.0
(1 ratings)
8.7
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)Kubernetes
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
At one instance, there was a fire in our data center and the backup power had some issues because of which the whole DC went down. I believe with AKS and the replication it's easier to handle such a situation. Also, the scenario would have been pretty transparent to the end-users.
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Kubernetes
K8s should be avoided - If your application works well without being converted into microservices-based architecture & fits correctly in a VM, needs less scaling, have a fixed traffic pattern then it is better to keep away from Kubernetes. Otherwise, the operational challenges & technical expertise will add a lot to the OPEX. Also, if you're the one who thinks that containers consume fewer resources as compared to VMs then this is not true. As soon as you convert your application to a microservice-based architecture, a lot of components will add up, shooting your resource consumption even higher than VMs so, please beware. Kubernetes is a good choice - When the application needs quick scaling, is already in microservice-based architecture, has no fixed traffic pattern, most of the employees already have desired skills.
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Pros
Microsoft
  • Scales quickly when the user base increases randomly
  • Downgrades very fast if a bunch of users hop off the system
  • Great dev UX for IT
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Kubernetes
  • Complex cluster management can be done with simple commands with strong authentication and authorization schemes
  • Exhaustive documentation and open community smoothens the learning process
  • As a user a few concepts like pod, deployment and service are sufficient to go a long way
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Cons
Microsoft
  • Steep learning curve
  • Expected charges are unclear until you see real production usage
  • Operations teams need to learn an entirely new skill set
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Kubernetes
  • Local development, Kubernetes does tend to be a bit complicated and unnecessary in environments where all development is done locally.
  • The need for add-ons, Helm is almost required when running Kubernetes. This brings a whole new tool to manage and learn before a developer can really start to use Kubernetes effectively.
  • Finicy configmap schemes. Kubernetes configmaps often have environment breaking hangups. The fail safes surrounding configmaps are sadly lacking.
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Kubernetes
The Kubernetes is going to be highly likely renewed as the technologies that will be placed on top of it are long term as of planning. There shouldn't be any last minute changes in the adoption and I do not anticipate sudden change of the core underlying technology. It is just that the slow process of technology adoption that makes it hard to switch to something else.
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Usability
Microsoft
Barring certain missing features such as operator management , open cluster management, it does gives lot of options to host containerized applications. The GUI may be improved and can give user more insights to the cluster rather than using command line tools. The integration with standard azure monitoring tools is a big plus to use Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
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Kubernetes
It is an eminently usable platform. However, its popularity is overshadowed by its complexity. To properly leverage the capabilities and possibilities of Kubernetes as a platform, you need to have excellent understanding of your use case, even better understanding of whether you even need Kubernetes, and if yes - be ready to invest in good engineering support for the platform itself
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Support Rating
Microsoft
Microsoft support was really good, whenever we raise any ticket they come back to us within a couple of hours.
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Kubernetes
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
Due to cost efficiency. And using AZURE cloud for other services as well. Azure Kubernetes Service is more suitable to configure CI/CD pipelines. With a facility of automated or One click deployment and integration of the application. As compared with other Kubernetes Services like Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service and Google Kubernetes Service, Azure Kubernetes is most cost-efficient with the same facilities and with an advantage to configure easily, manage easily, as it is one click manageable with Microsoft applications. It provides high Microsoft security to containers and secures applications from any kind of harm.
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Kubernetes
Most of the required features for any orchestration tool or framework, which is provided by Kubernetes. After understanding all modules and features of the K8S, it is the best fit for us as compared with others out there.
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Positive impact in moving applications to cloud from the in-hose data center to save cost
  • Sometimes got affected with some bugs on the AKS infrastructure but hasn't caused a big kios as our production footprint in AKS is not yet high
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Kubernetes
  • Because of microservices, Kubernetes makes it easy to find the cost of each application easily.
  • Like every new technology, initially, it took more resources to educate ourselves but over a period of time, I believe it's going to be worth it.
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ScreenShots