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Amazon EKS vs Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE [EOL] comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 1, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EKS
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
Container Management (2nd), Container Security (12th)
Nutanix Kubernetes Engine N...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Mahesh Dash - PeerSpot reviewer
Has enabled seamless infrastructure configuration while improving identity integration and monitoring capabilities
It has been since 2019 that I started using Amazon EKS. At that time, it was completely new, and many people were not using it just yet; it started from version 1.21, and right now we are on 1.33. Recently, 1.34 has been launched, but it's not yet available in the service catalog; we can see only 1.33. A lot of improvements have been made. We had numerous add-ons to install manually because Kubernetes is a completely different service than AWS cloud provider, and everyone has opted to use it. After opting, there is an identity that you have to maintain—one at Kubernetes level and one at the AWS provider level. You have to maintain one identity at IAM level and one within the cluster, Amazon EKS. A few things do not make sense within the add-ons, many of the secret providers that read the secret from Secrets Manager and then mount it as a volume. We use a service called EBS CSI driver, which reads the secrets or sensitive data from Secrets Manager and then mounts it as a volume to the pod at runtime. However, that doesn't have a dynamic feature where, if any changes happen in the secrets, it can read and populate in the environment. Sometimes consider your RDS password or OpenSearch password rotates. Amazon EKS doesn't have that feature to read the dynamic one and consider that the password has changed overnight; there is no functionality from the provider to see the changes and then restart the pod or fetch the new value. This often leads to downtime of 12 or even 6 hours, depending on when you realize it, so that needs improvement. Nonetheless, mostly on the add-on side, they have developed a lot; earlier we were installing them manually, but now with EKS auto mode, many things VPC CLI and pod identity service—around four plugins—are installed by default, which is a good thing. However, I believe there should be some solution that is self-contained, covering generic use cases. With the 1.33 release, they have addressed most of my earlier concerns, but I am still looking for some improvements, particularly in CloudWatch monitoring. In IT, we manage two aspects: either the system or the application. Currently, the application logs and monitoring are not very robust in CloudWatch; you can only find things if you are familiar with them. Fortunately, we are familiar, as most of the monitoring involves two types of databases: one is a time series for monitoring data, and the other is an indexing solution for a streaming service. This means we need to get the logs from each node, index them, and populate them on a screen. That part remains a separate service, but if they managed it within Amazon EKS service, where the monitoring is consolidated in one place, you wouldn't need to rely on Prometheus, Grafana, or different services. It would be advantageous to have a consolidated platform for EKS, as Kubernetes is leveraged; monitoring and logging should also be integrated simply by enabling parameters or tags. This would create a self-contained platform where people can onboard and start using it. Currently, I still need to enable logging and monitoring among other things myself; that shouldn't be the case after six or seven years in the market. On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate Amazon EKS tech support an eight. Some individuals have a deep understanding of the services and can identify potential bottlenecks, especially with load balancer endpoints and certificate management. The shift from NGINX to AWS load balancers has diminished many previous issues. However, not every support engineer meets the same level of expertise, hence why I rate it a solid eight, which I consider decent.
Prasanthraj PN - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers efficient deployment and management with easy resource allocation, yet faces challenges in integration and compatibility
Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE offers easy and fast deployment, management, stability, reliability, and cost-effectiveness. The resource allocation is very simple. If we need to expand the memory, storage space, or processor core, it is very easy to manage through our central control. These features are what stand out the most.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like the scalability they're currently providing. Integration was very easy. It was a good experience."
"The integration with IAM enhances the authentication processes as it prevents multiple outages, failures, and mis-deletions from users."
"Overall Amazon EKS is a good solution in the industry. The solution can support multi tendencies, and network isolations are the key factors."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Amazon EKS allowed me to build scalable, compliant, and enterprise-ready AI services without worrying about managing Kubernetes manually."
"The features and capabilities of Amazon EKS that I have found most valuable include the ease of deployment and the interesting part being the cost, which is not as expensive as setting up other cloud infrastructure."
"By integrating AWS IAM roles with Amazon EKS service accounts, we can leverage other services from Amazon EKS such as S3, Secrets Manager, or EC2, and the concept of IRSA helps us integrate with external services of the Amazon EKS cluster easily."
"Amazon EKS can be used to implement and create clusters."
"My experience with Nutanix's technical support is excellent."
"We can do a lot of provisioning."
"The solution provides no downtime features. If we face issues, we create a new port, deploy it there, and then drop the existing one. This way, we avoid NKE downtime on our website."
"We can add some add-ons and plugins to the product if we need to."
"Nutanix's support is really good."
"The most valuable features of the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) are its simplicity and efficiency during the initial cluster creation phase."
"The solution is easy to manage. You can get everything in a single platform. It is also easy to work with Terraform as a code."
"Nutanix is very stable and reliable, based on my experience with many customers, including large banks and telcos."
 

Cons

"We encountered challenges with WebSocket integration when implementing chat functionality on Amazon EKS."
"While exploring options for potential Amazon EKS downtime scenarios, we found Velero to be the only backup option, which is both overwhelming and complicated to set up."
"Amazon EKS doesn't have that feature to read the dynamic one and consider that the password has changed overnight; there is no functionality from the provider to see the changes and then restart the pod or fetch the new value."
"Improvements could include better support and pricing, which is always important."
"The documentation part of the product is an area of concern that needs to be made easier from an improvement perspective."
"What could be improved in Amazon EKS is the documentation. It's pretty dynamic, moving too fast, and sometimes the documentation doesn't reflect the migration between changes, especially if you use some non-native vendor enterprise components and CRDM modules."
"They should enhance the Jira integration."
"They could add logging features. At present, we use external tools to increase and decrease the number of instances."
"There have been challenges related to software bugs, especially regarding long-term licensing options and issues within our customer network."
"GUI lacks sufficient information to help with understanding the installation and process."
"Areas for improvement in Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) include upgrading management capabilities and enhancing the user interface for improved usability."
"We need a backup of production clusters."
"It's mostly for lab purposes; we haven't seen a lot of traction in the market from enterprise customers yet."
"I would like to have more nodes for availability and storage."
"The product lacks some virtualization capabilities, making it an area for improvement where the solution can focus on providing users with more virtualization capabilities related to disk systems."
"I have issues with the product's interoperability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Amazon EKS’s pricing is ok compared to its competitors."
"I would like a cheaper version of it."
"The price can be a problem for small-sized businesses."
"The price could be cheaper. I would rate it as seven out of ten."
"Amazon EKS is not a cheap solution."
"The solution's pricing is fair enough and a little less costly."
"The solution is pricey. The tool's pricing is monthly."
"The solution is quite costly and developers will start exploring other solutions or moving their workloads to other clouds if costs aren't reduced."
"While deploying Kubernetes clusters on Nutanix is cost-effective, there may be additional costs for remote branch offices where Kubernetes is less common."
"I rate the product price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The platform is averagely priced. I rate the pricing as four out of ten."
"I rate NKE's pricing a six out of ten."
"The product's licenses are included in the software version deployed in our data center."
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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
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise38
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

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?
Regarding the pricing aspect and the licensing cost of Amazon EKS, sometimes it is not clear. Most discussions revolve around the data transfer costs from one region to another, and there are certa...
What needs improvement with Amazon EKS?
I have experience with Azure, and in comparison to Azure, a downside of Amazon EKS is that even if you want to deploy a dev workload or do some experimentation, we have to pay the charges for the c...
What do you like most about Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?
The most valuable features of the Nutanix Kubernetes Engine (NKE) are its simplicity and efficiency during the initial cluster creation phase.
What needs improvement with Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?
In terms of features, I cannot comment technically, but the real value is the consolidated out-of-the-box solution that Nutanix offers. Nutanix has built great branding and a lot of credibility and...
What is your primary use case for Nutanix Kubernetes Engine NKE?
I have experience with OpenShift, Kubernetes, and Nutanix, as we are one of the largest Nutanix resellers in the Middle East. We handle Kubernetes on the cloud as well, so we manage most of the Kub...
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service
Nutanix Karbon
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

GoDaddy, Pearson, FICO, Intuit, Verizon, Honeywell, Logicworks, RetailMeNot, LogMeIn, Conde Nast, mercari, Trainline, Axway
JetBlue, International Speedway Corporation, SAIC Volkswagen
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