All three services run certified Kubernetes. The differences are in pricing, networking defaults, GPU availability, and ecosystem integration. Here is what matters in 2026.
Pricing
| Component | EKS | AKS | GKE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Control plane | $0.10/hr ($73/mo) | Free | Free (Standard), $0.10/hr (Enterprise) |
| Worker nodes | EC2 pricing | VM pricing | GCE pricing |
| Free tier | No | Yes (free control plane) | Yes (1 Autopilot cluster free) |
| Managed node groups | Yes | Yes (default) | Yes (Autopilot = fully managed) |
| GPU nodes (A100 80GB) | ~$32/hr (p4d.24xlarge) | ~$28/hr (NC A100 v4) | ~$26/hr (a2-ultragpu-1g) |
Cheapest for experimentation: AKS (free control plane, pay only for nodes) Cheapest for GPU/AI: GKE (aggressive GPU pricing, Spot TPU availability) Most enterprise features included: GKE Enterprise
Networking
| Feature | EKS | AKS | GKE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default CNI | AWS VPC CNI | Azure CNI | GKE dataplane v2 (Cilium) |
| Pod IP model | VPC IPs (routable) | VNet IPs or overlay | VPC-native (alias IPs) |
| Network policy | Calico (addon) | Calico or Cilium | Cilium (built-in) |
| Service mesh | App Mesh / Istio | Istio (addon) | Istio (managed, native) |
| Load balancer | ALB/NLB | Azure LB | Cloud L4/L7 LB |
| Ingress | AWS LB Controller | AGIC or NGINX | GKE Gateway API (native) |
| Multi-cluster | Manual / Karmada | Fleet Manager | GKE Fleet (native) |
GKE leads in networking — Cilium built-in, Gateway API native, managed Istio. EKS and AKS require addons for equivalent capabilities.
GPU and AI workloads
| Feature | EKS | AKS | GKE |
|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GPU Operator | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| H100/H200 | Available | Available | Available |
| TPU | No | No | Yes (Cloud TPU v5e/v6e) |
| GPU time-slicing | Manual | Manual | Native |
| Multi-instance GPU | Yes | Yes | Yes (native config) |
| Kueue (job scheduling) | Manual install | Manual install | Integrated |
| Spot/preemptible GPU | Spot Instances | Spot VMs | Spot VMs + Spot TPUs |
| NVIDIA NIM | Marketplace | Marketplace | Marketplace |
GKE is strongest for AI/ML — TPU access, native Kueue, tight NVIDIA NIM integration.
Operations
| Feature | EKS | AKS | GKE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Auto-upgrade | Optional | Default | Default (Autopilot: forced) |
| Node auto-repair | Karpenter | VMSS repair | Auto-repair (default) |
| Autoscaling | Karpenter / Cluster Autoscaler | KEDA / Cluster Autoscaler | Autopilot (automatic) |
| Logging | CloudWatch | Azure Monitor | Cloud Logging (native) |
| Version support | 14 months | 12 months | 14 months |
| Release channels | Extended support ($) | Standard | Rapid/Regular/Stable |
Decision guide
Choose EKS when:
- Your infrastructure is AWS-native (IAM, VPC, S3, RDS)
- You use Karpenter for intelligent node scaling
- Your team knows AWS networking (VPC, subnets, security groups)
- You need the broadest instance type selection
Choose AKS when:
- Your organization uses Microsoft 365 / Azure AD for identity
- Cost is a priority — free control plane saves $73/month per cluster
- You need Windows node pools (strongest Windows container support)
- Integration with Azure DevOps or GitHub (Microsoft ecosystem)
Choose GKE when:
- AI/ML workloads — TPU access, Kueue, GPU time-slicing
- You want least operational overhead (Autopilot = fully managed)
- Networking matters — Cilium, Gateway API, managed Istio built-in
- Multi-cluster at scale with GKE Fleet
