AWS ECS vs EKS: Which Scales Better?

Orchestrating multiple machines to handle complex tasks is nothing new. However, the rise of containerized applications, with their lightweight and portable nature, has fundamentally changed how we think about building and deploying them. 

Enter container orchestration platforms like Amazon ECS and Amazon EKS. These services address the complexities of containerized applications by automating deployment, scaling, and management. The container management software market will bring home $944 million this year, with developers turning to these services to help free up time, automate, and scale.

If you are ready to choose a platform like ECS or EKS, the only remaining question is: Which scales better?

What is AWS ECS?

Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) is a highly scalable and high-performance container orchestration service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS). ECS simplifies running and managing containers on a cluster of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances or AWS Fargate, a serverless compute engine.

The ECS architecture

At its core, the ECS architecture consists of the following components:

• Clusters: A logical grouping of EC2 instances or Fargate tasks that run your containerized applications.
• Tasks: A blueprint for your application, defining which Docker images to use, CPU and memory requirements, and data volumes.
• Services: Maintain a specified number of task definitions simultaneously across your cluster, ensuring high availability and load balancing.
• Containers: The Docker containers that encapsulate your application and its dependencies.

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5 key features of AWS ECS

Here are five key features of ECS that streamline container orchestration on AWS. 

1. Cluster management

ECS simplifies managing clusters, which are groups of EC2 instances that run containerized tasks. You can easily create, scale, and update clusters without managing the underlying infrastructure.

2. Tasks and services

Tasks are the building blocks of ECS. They define the container(s) to be run and their configuration. A service definition specifies how many tasks (instances) you want running concurrently and ensures their availability. ECS automatically launches and manages tasks based on your service definition, scaling them up or down as needed to meet demand.

3. Flexible scheduling

ECS offers fine-grained control over how tasks are scheduled on your cluster. You can define placement constraints to ensure tasks run on specific instance types or within Availability Zones for high availability. This flexibility allows you to optimize resource utilization and application performance.

4. Scalability

A core strength of ECS is its ability to automatically scale your containerized applications. You can define scaling policies based on CPU, memory, or other application metrics. When these metrics reach predefined thresholds, ECS automatically scales your services up or down, ensuring optimal performance and cost-efficiency.

5. Integration with AWS services

ECS integrates seamlessly with a wide range of AWS services. For example, you can leverage Amazon ECR for secure container image storage and management, CloudWatch to monitor container health, and VPC to create private networks for your containerized applications. This tight integration simplifies deployment and cloud risk management within the AWS ecosystem.

What is AWS EKS?

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) is a managed Kubernetes service provided by AWS. It simplifies the process of deploying, managing, and scaling containerized applications using Kubernetes on AWS. Overall, it is simpler because you do not have to manually set up a cluster from scratch, which can be a pain. 

The EKS architecture

At its core, EKS separates the responsibilities between the control plane and worker nodes:

• Control plane: This is the brain of the operation, responsible for scheduling tasks, managing worker nodes, and ensuring overall cluster health. EKS automatically manages the availability and scalability of the control plane, ensuring a highly reliable and fault-tolerant environment. It automatically replaces unhealthy control plane nodes, eliminating the burden of manual intervention.
• Worker nodes: These are the workhorses, running the actual containerized applications. You provision these nodes using Amazon EC2 instances, and EKS takes care of scheduling tasks and managing communication between them.

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5 key features of AWS EKS

EKS offers a robust set of features that make it a compelling choice for running containerized applications on AWS with Kubernetes. 

1. Managed Kubernetes control plane

EKS manages the Kubernetes control plane for you, lifting the operational burden of scaling and maintaining the control plane nodes. However, it’s important to note that with a managed control plane, you lose some flexibility.

2. Scalability and high availability

EKS automatically provisions and scales the Kubernetes control plane across multiple Availability Zones, ensuring high availability and fault tolerance. It also seamlessly integrates with other AWS services, such as Auto Scaling groups, to scale your worker nodes based on demand.

3. EKS Anywhere

EKS Anywhere allows you to create and manage Kubernetes clusters on-premises. This feature is particularly useful for organizations with existing on-premises infrastructure, enabling a gradual migration to EKS and a consistent Kubernetes experience across environments.

For a more efficient and developer-friendly experience, you can turn to an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) like Control Plane. Control Plane’s managed Kubernetes provides a more effective way to run compute anywhere, making EKS Anywhere seem bloated and outdated. 

4. Seamless integration with AWS services

EKS integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, such as Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) for storing and retrieving Docker images, Identity and Access Management (IAM) via AWS Access Analyzer for access control, and AWS Load Balancers for distributing traffic across your containerized applications.

5. Open source and Kubernetes compatibility

EKS is built on top of the industry-standard Kubernetes platform. This feature ensures compatibility with a vast ecosystem of Kubernetes tools and integrations. You can leverage existing Kubernetes security best practices, knowledge, and readily available resources to manage your EKS clusters.

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AWS ECS vs EKS: Which scales better?

When it comes to scalability, both AWS ECS and EKS offer robust solutions, but their approaches differ. Here’s a breakdown of how they compare in terms of scalability and other key factors.

1. Scalability

Both ECS and EKS are designed to scale vertically and horizontally and can effectively handle large workloads. However, the scalability of either solution largely depends on your team’s expertise and infrastructure setup.

EKS leverages the robust scalability features of Kubernetes, allowing you to scale and optimize individual Kubernetes workloads, clusters, and nodes independently. It supports auto-scaling based on various metrics and can scale to thousands of nodes if configured correctly.

ECS also offers auto-scaling capabilities and can scale tasks and services based on demand. Yet, its scalability is more tightly coupled with AWS infrastructure and may require more manual intervention for complex scaling scenarios.

You can scale workloads of any type on the Control Plane platform. Control Plane’s scaling features include Auto Scaling, which dynamically adjusts the number of workload replicas based on configurable scaling strategies and min/max replica settings.

Additionally, Control Plane’s Capacity AI offers intelligent allocation of CPU and memory resources based on historical usage to optimize costs.

2. Simplicity vs. flexibility

ECS is generally considered simpler and more straightforward to set up and manage, especially for teams with extensive AWS experience and long-term commitments to the AWS ecosystem. It provides a more opinionated and managed approach to container orchestration.

As EKS is based on Kubernetes, it offers more flexibility and customization options but has a steeper learning curve. Kubernetes has a rich ecosystem of tools and add-ons that can simplify the experience but require a deeper understanding of Kubernetes concepts.

3. Kubernetes ecosystem and portability

One of EKS’s key advantages is its compatibility with the vast Kubernetes ecosystem. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) landscape offers a wide range of tools and projects that can work seamlessly with EKS, providing a consistent experience across different cloud providers or on-premises environments.

ECS, being an AWS-specific service, lacks this level of portability and ecosystem support. While it integrates well with other AWS services, its tooling and ecosystem are more limited compared to Kubernetes.

Kubernetes clusters hosted anywhere can be easily added to Control Plane, enabling you to switch clouds or add clouds with a few clicks. You can use Control Plane without in-depth knowledge of Kubernetes and its associated technologies but, if you have already deployed your own clusters, the platform augments and expands your existing Kubernetes infrastructure.

4. Integrations

ECS has first-class integration with other AWS services like IAM, CodePipeline, and Elastic Load Balancing, making deploying and managing containerized applications within the AWS ecosystem seamless.

EKS also integrates with various AWS services, including IAM for access control and  External Secrets Operator for retrieving secrets stored in AWS.

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5. Cost

Cloud cost optimization is often tied to scale and resource utilization. Both ECS and EKS can be costly solutions, but optimizing resource allocation and utilization is essential. A study by Datadog found that 65% of Kubernetes workloads utilize less than half of their requested CPU and memory, highlighting the importance of proper resource management and monitoring in both solutions. 

Running workloads on the all-in-one virtual cloud platform Control Plane minimizes cloud spend significantly while giving you granular control and visibility of your infrastructure.

6. Team expertise

Your team’s expertise and familiarity with either ECS or EKS can significantly impact the scalability and manageability of your containerized applications. Teams with extensive AWS experience and a deep understanding of AWS services may find ECS more straightforward to adopt and scale. Teams with prior Kubernetes experience or a strong desire to leverage the Kubernetes ecosystem may find EKS more appealing despite the steeper learning curve. 

Your team can run, manage, and scale containers and Kubernetes clusters effortlessly on Control Plane and increase productivity tenfold.

Scale seamlessly with Control Plane

Choosing between ECS and EKS is just the beginning of the containerized application deployment journey. Your team will still need to set up and manage various AWS services, such as logs, metrics, tracing, connectivity, networking, DNS, load balancing, and autoscaling, which can be complex and time-consuming.

Whether you’ve yet to decide between ECS and EKS or are already familiar with one or the other, Control Plane simplifies this process by providing a full, out-of-the-box experience, enabling application developers to be productive without requiring deep expertise in AWS services or Kubernetes.

After all, scaling containerized applications involves not only the infrastructure’s technical aspects but also your development team’s productivity and efficiency. Control Plane provides an opinionated, developer-friendly platform that abstracts complexity and offers a single pane of glass for easy management. Get started with Control Plane today.