What's the Difference Between Amazon EKS and AWS Lambda?
Compare Amazon EKS and AWS Lambda side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.
Compare side-by-side
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Comparisons
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Amazon EKS
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AWS Lambda
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Category
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Containers, Kubernetes |
Serverless, Functions |
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Description
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Managed Kubernetes service for running containerized applications |
Service for running code without thinking about servers or clusters |
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Best for
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Key features
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Pricing model
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$0.10/hr per cluster + underlying compute |
Pay-per-request + compute duration |
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Free tier
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No |
Yes |
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Expert take
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EKS is production-grade Kubernetes without the undifferentiated heavy lifting of operating it. From Auto Mode handling compute lifecycle to EKS Capabilities providing managed Argo CD and resource orchestration, teams get the full Kubernetes ecosystem with the reliability and scale of AWS underneath” |
“Lambda is best used for single-function microservices that are small, fast, and easy to maintain. For workloads with unpredictable traffic, short duration, or infrequent invocations, Lambda eliminates the need to manage infrastructure entirely.” |
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Product page
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When to use Amazon EKS or AWS Lambda
Use Amazon EKS when:
- Kubernetes workloads
- Hybrid deployments
- Machine learning
- Batch processing
Use AWS Lambda when:
- Event-driven processing
- API backends
- Data transformation
- Real-time file processing
Next steps with AWS for Containers
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