ECS + Cluster Auto Scaling versus EKS + Managed Node Group

09 Oct 2024

Learn how ECS + Cluster Auto Scaling differs from EKS + Managed Node Group.

ECS + Cluster Auto Scaling EKS + Managed Node Group
Deployment Options

⚠️ AWS only (except ECS Anywhere)

✅ Major cloud providers, On-premises, …

Availability

✅ All AWS regions

✅ Available in most regions

Cluster Costs (per month)

$ 0.00

$ 72.00

Compute Costs

💰

💰

Compute Pricing Options

✅ On-demand
✅ Spot
✅ Savings Plan

✅ On-demand
✅ Spot
✅ Savings Plan

Virtual Machines

⚠️ EC2 instances running in your AWS account. ECS Cluster Auto Scaling does not cover all aspects of operating virtual machines (e.g. rolling update to update AMI).

⚠️ EC2 instances running in your AWS account, but Managed Node Group + Cluster Autoscaler automate most operations tasks.

Infrastructure Scaling

⚠️ ECS Cluster Auto Scaling works fine for scaling up. But will not scale down automatically in most scenarios.

✅ Managed Node Groups and Cluster Autoscaler scale the cluster capacity up and down automatically.

Networking

✅ ENI and Security Group per task/container.

⚠️ Multiple containers/pods share the same ENI and Security Group.

Load Balancing

✅ ALB + NLB + CLB

✅ ALB + NLB + CLB

Service Discovery

✅ Cloud Map

✅ K8s