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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.

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Comparisons
Amazon EKS
AWS Lambda
Category

Containers, Kubernetes

Serverless, Functions

Description

Managed Kubernetes service for running containerized applications

Service for running code without thinking about servers or clusters

Best for
  • Kubernetes workloads
  • Hybrid deployments
  • Machine learning
  • Batch processing
  • Event-driven processing
  • API backends
  • Data transformation
  • Real-time file processing
Key features
  • Managed control plane
  • EKS Anywhere
  • Fargate support
  • Add-ons marketplace
  • Auto mode
  • Auto scaling
  • Sub-second metering
  • Multiple runtimes
  • Container image support
  • Provisioned concurrency
Pricing model

$0.10/hr per cluster + underlying compute

Pay-per-request + compute duration

Free tier

No

Yes

Expert take

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”
— Aditya Ramakrishnan, AWS Product Marketing Manager 

“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.”
— Didier Durand, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

Product page

When to use Amazon EKS or AWS Lambda

Use Amazon EKS when:

  • Kubernetes workloads
  • Hybrid deployments
  • Machine learning
  • Batch processing

Learn more about Amazon EKS »

Use AWS Lambda when:

  • Event-driven processing
  • API backends
  • Data transformation
  • Real-time file processing

Learn more about AWS Lambda »

AWS product comparisons

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