Amazon EKS vs Red Hat OpenShift
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Amazon EKS and Red Hat OpenShift.
Quick Verdict
3.9/5
Amazon EKS
0 reviews
3.6/5
Red Hat OpenShift
0 reviews
Amazon EKS is rated higher (3.9 vs 3.6). Managed Kubernetes service that handles cluster operations, patching, and scaling. For teams running containerized workloads who want to reduce Kubernetes infrastructure overhead. Red Hat OpenShift is a managed Kubernetes distribution that adds developer tools, CI/CD pipelines, and enterprise security on top of Kubernetes. Built for teams managing containerized applications at scale.
 Amazon EKS AWS-managed Kubernetes with automatic control plane patching and scaling | Red Hat OpenShift Enterprise Kubernetes platform with built-in DevOps and security | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.9 (0 reviews)✓ | 3.6 (0 reviews) |
| Pricing model | paid | paid |
| Starting price | From $73/mo | Free tier available |
| Best for | Organizations already committed to AWS who need production Kubernetes without managing the control plane infrastructure | Regulated enterprises and large platform teams that need a certified, supported Kubernetes platform with compliance tooling, hybrid deployment freedom, and vendor accountability — not teams optimizing for cost |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ✓ | |
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ||
| Data-center locations | ||
| Regions | — | On-prem/bare metal plus managed services on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | managed optionapi accessus datacentereu datacenterapac datacenterterraform provider | managed optionteam featuressso |
| Visit Amazon EKS → | Visit Red Hat OpenShift → | |
Amazon EKS
Pros
- + AWS-managed control plane across three AZs: no etcd, API server or upgrade operations
- + Upstream-conformant Kubernetes — standard manifests, operators and CNCF tooling work unchanged
- + Public, simple cluster fee ($0.10/hour) with no per-seat charges and no overage premiums on usage
- + Choice of EC2 managed node groups (including GPU and Graviton), Fargate serverless pods or Auto Mode
- + Deep AWS integration: IAM auth, VPC networking, EBS/ECR, Shield Standard DDoS protection, 39 regions
Cons
- - Extended support jumps to $0.60/hour per cluster after 14 months if versions are not upgraded
- - Total cost dominated by compute, storage and inter-AZ data transfer; bills are hard to forecast
- - Real AWS coupling through IAM, CSI drivers and ingress controllers despite Kubernetes conformance
- - Human support requires paid AWS Support plans on top of the platform costs
Red Hat OpenShift
Pros
- + Complete, supported enterprise Kubernetes: CI/CD, registry, mesh, policy, Operator catalog, lifecycle management in one platform
- + Runs everywhere — bare metal, VMware, all major clouds — with managed options (Dedicated, ROSA, ARO, IBM Cloud) and a 99.95% SLA
- + Real accountability: 24x7 Red Hat support, certified components, and compliance evidence for regulated industries
- + Full IPv6 single/dual-stack networking and documented NVIDIA GPU support including bare-metal GPU deployments
Cons
- - The most expensive way to run Kubernetes per core, with quote-driven self-managed pricing and no public list table
- - Heavy abstraction layer and real lock-in (Routes, BuildConfigs, ImageStreams, SCCs) versus upstream Kubernetes
- - Portfolio sprawl: four self-managed editions and four managed services are hard to navigate and easy to over-buy
- - Platform administration skills still required; restricted security defaults reject workloads that run fine elsewhere
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