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Amazon EKS vs Docker comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 13, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
3.5
Amazon EKS provides cost efficiency, scalability, and productivity, despite concerns over operational costs and vendor lock-in.
Sentiment score
8.0
Docker offers cost savings by enhancing efficiency, reducing complexity, and enabling faster deployment with consistent environments and smaller hardware.
We have cost explorer available, and a bill forecast based on usage allows us to determine whether resources are underutilized or overutilized.
It's a fast deployment, with very good documentation, and it's really helpful.
I can recommend using it to save costs and for faster deployment, better performance, security, and easy clustering.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Amazon EKS support is praised for responsiveness and professionalism, though forum access and response times could improve.
Sentiment score
4.1
Docker's customer service is praised for documentation, though many use community resources; support averages 7-8/10 in ratings.
We didn't need to manage etcd and those control management tools; it's totally handled from the AWS side, making it very beneficial.
I believe there should be a recovery solution available for at least a few hours so that we might bring it back.
They will set up a call, guide us, or provide solutions regarding integration with AWS or Amazon EKS.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
5.4
Amazon EKS excels in scalability, effectively managing complex deployments and user bases with autoscaling and AWS integration for efficiency.
Sentiment score
7.5
Docker efficiently scales applications, especially with Kubernetes and Terraform, despite limitations in disk space and local machine scalability.
The ability to scale based on requirements by deploying additional containers is a strong point for Kubernetes.
This allows us to scale our applications or APIs as needed, offering reliability through the automation of scaling processes.
If any node is not ready, the cluster autoscaler ensures that it is removed from the AWS auto-scaling group and replaces it with a new node in the cluster.
Previously, only one or two applications could run on a server, but now it can handle hundreds of applications, scaling up or down as needed.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.6
Amazon EKS is highly stable and reliable, with minor issues mostly due to user errors or misconfiguration.
Sentiment score
7.9
Docker is highly regarded for stability and reliability, despite minor issues with Windows compatibility and occasional resource concerns.
There are multiple availability zones in the regions, meaning no single point of failure.
The control plane is quite stable in Amazon EKS, and I find it to be 100% available.
We haven't faced any challenges, and it consistently delivers on its committed SLA.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon EKS faces challenges with networking, pricing, complexity, and calls for better usability, documentation, and feature enhancements.
Docker needs improvements in stability, security, documentation, user interface, pricing, and support to enhance adoption and usability.
Simplifying these will enable more people, not just those with strong foundational knowledge, to work effectively with these services.
Amazon EKS can be improved by having the maintenance of Kubernetes versions managed better, as everything is handled by the Kubernetes team and possibly a separate team at AWS.
Adding logging would be a valuable improvement.
Docker is a time-tested, proven solution with industry-wide applications.
In terms of communication between services, perhaps the configuration within networks between containers could be improved.
 

Setup Cost

Amazon EKS is costly for small businesses but scalable for large enterprises with flexible pay-as-you-go pricing.
Docker's open-source version is free, but licensing for Enterprise users starts at $24 per user monthly, prompting alternatives.
The EKS service itself is free, but you will incur costs for the VMs used as nodes in that cluster.
The pricing structure is beneficial for large companies who pay for what they use, but it is not affordable for startups.
Now, it stands at six or seven due to optimizing our workload.
I consider Docker's pricing to be affordable.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon EKS streamlines Kubernetes management with automation, scalability, and security, allowing teams to focus on application development.
Docker's key benefits are security, ease of use, portability, quick deployment, and efficient resource management with extensive features and documentation.
The most beneficial aspect of Amazon EKS is that it helps manage the Kubernetes master node, so I don't need to maintain the master node, including tasks like upgrading.
The main benefits that I received from using Amazon EKS are that it is a managed cluster and offers simplicity.
By default, if you just install Amazon EKS, you can deploy your application, but to have it enterprise-ready, you have to configure a number of other things that will boost productivity.
It allows the software to run on various machines without compatibility issues, saving a lot of time.
The most valuable feature is the simple containerization.
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EKS
Ranking in Container Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
Container Security (15th)
Docker
Ranking in Container Management
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Development Platforms (1st), Software Supply Chain Security (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Container Management category, the mindshare of Amazon EKS is 11.8%, down from 14.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Docker is 4.2%, up from 3.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Container Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Amazon EKS11.8%
Docker4.2%
Other84.0%
Container Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sameer Mirza - PeerSpot reviewer
Managed service ensures efficient monitoring and security with outstanding scalability
Amazon EKS's self-healing nodes help minimize administrative burdens in my organization by automating through all of Amazon EKS. We have used multiple types of automation tools which we directly integrate for the deployment purpose of the Amazon EKS cluster. We have integrated them with the Docker side of Amazon EKS, allowing the container service to run over there, so it is directly deployed for the administrative level of the Amazon EKS cluster. The benefits I have seen from Amazon EKS include a fully managed Kubernetes service for the control plane, the API server level, etcd scheduler, and controller. There's no need to worry about patching, scaling, and maintaining the master node. There is high availability over multiple availability zone control panels, and security compliance is guaranteed for IAM; AWS IAM users authenticate and access the control from the support VPC isolation and security group network policy. The integration with IAM helps enhance our authentication process because IAM basically helps with access. Nobody can enter with any kind of access, and any kind of vulnerability will be showing in my application. If I set an IAM user to that Amazon EKS cluster, that user will have limited access, and that application will run through that IAM user only. It is very beneficial, and for security purposes, it's also important because vulnerabilities will be found and block all the vulnerability and security issues if you set an IAM user to the Amazon EKS cluster with limited access.
Sunny Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers application conversion to Docker image and a mature environment
The learning curve with Docker is huge and extensive. Adopting Docker is a bit difficult because it requires a lot of expertise and background, including an understanding of networking and security concepts. Many professionals are facing issues with the different architectures that interact with each other in Docker. Whenever in our company, we are working with the production environment, professionals are hesitant to adopt Docker due to the extensive learning curve, and most of the team members in our company are more accustomed to an environment like VMware instead of Docker. Docker runs on scripts, so if AI can automate most of the scripting process in Docker, it would be a great advantage in the future version of Docker. As of now, we can create scripts utilizing most of the functions within Docker, but that initial planning phase wherein to understand exactly how you will plan for the resources, how you will convert applications into a Docker-based image, and similar tasks needs to be simplified so that more professionals can adopt Docker.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
21%
Computer Software Company
11%
Insurance Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise36
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EKS?
The product's most valuable features are scalability, observability, and performance.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EKS?
The majority of my time setup cost was very affordable, taking just two hours. It was easy as I didn't have to worry about setting all the infrastructure underneath, just using what's there. This s...
What needs improvement with Amazon EKS?
One area I observed during setup was that while managing it through CLI and Terraform, there are many possibilities for setup and infrastructure updates. However, I believe the console experience c...
What do you like most about Docker?
We are using Docker to host applications.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Docker?
Regarding the cost, Mirantis Container Cloud is cheaper than other solutions like Red Hat. The license costs around 10,000 Indian rupees per year.
What needs improvement with Docker?
Mirantis Container Cloud should have AI integration tools, which are not available right now. These tools should assist in app scalability and deployment error handling.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GoDaddy, Pearson, FICO, Intuit, Verizon, Honeywell, Logicworks, RetailMeNot, LogMeIn, Conde Nast, mercari, Trainline, Axway
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EKS vs. Docker and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
867,349 professionals have used our research since 2012.