Amazon EKS: the dedicated, sovereign alternative
EKS manages the Kubernetes control plane on AWS, billed by the hour and under US law. Bunker offers a dedicated cluster, hosted in Europe, at a predictable cost and with no lock-in.
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) is AWS's managed Kubernetes. AWS operates the control plane, billed by the hour and per cluster, and lets you run your containers on AWS servers or in serverless mode. The whole thing falls under US law.
Bunker keeps the comfort of a cluster operated for you, but on dedicated infrastructure, hosted in Europe, at a stable cost. AWS charges for outbound traffic, and the integration services (IAM, load balancing, storage) tie your applications to the ecosystem; a dedicated cluster, by contrast, runs on standard Kubernetes and stays portable.
Amazon EKS or a Bunker dedicated cluster
| Criterion | Amazon EKS | Bunker dedicated cluster |
|---|---|---|
| Operator | Amazon Web Services (United States) | Bunker and its infrastructure partner, Europe |
| Jurisdiction | United States (CLOUD Act) | France and European Union (GDPR) |
| Hardware | Shared at AWS | Dedicated to your organisation |
| Cost model | Control plane by the hour per cluster, nodes, outbound traffic | Stable rate on reserved hardware |
| Data egress fees | Charged | None between your sites |
| On-premise or bare metal | No | Yes, in your datacenter or on your servers |
| Lock-in | AWS services (IAM, ALB, EBS) that tie you to the cloud | Standard Kubernetes, portable manifests |
What EKS does well
EKS is robust and deeply integrated with AWS. For an organisation already on AWS, whose teams know the ecosystem and for whom jurisdiction is not a concern, the service does the job and draws on a very wide catalogue of building blocks.
Where a dedicated cluster takes the lead
The EKS model becomes uncomfortable when data is sensitive or costs drift. The control plane is billed by the hour and per cluster, outbound traffic adds up, and integration with AWS services ties your applications to the ecosystem. The infrastructure falls under US law and the CLOUD Act.
A Bunker dedicated cluster brings a stable cost on reserved hardware, European hosting under European law, and portable standard Kubernetes. EKS also offers no on-premise or bare metal option in your own datacenter.
Frequently asked questions
Can we migrate from EKS without rewriting everything?
Yes, for the most part. Your manifests, Helm charts and images are portable. The work focuses on the AWS services you use (IAM, ALB, EBS, ECR), replaced by their standard equivalents. We scope this migration with you.
Is Amazon EKS subject to the CLOUD Act?
EKS runs on AWS, a US provider. The data can therefore fall within the scope of the CLOUD Act, even when hosted in a European region. A cluster hosted and operated in Europe by a European team does not carry that exposure.
Do AWS egress fees really matter?
For an application that serves heavy traffic or replicates data outward, yes, outbound traffic becomes a notable and hard-to-forecast cost item. A dedicated cluster does not bill traffic between your own sites, which simplifies the budget.
Let's talk about your dedicated Kubernetes cluster
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Amazon EKS and Amazon Web Services are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. Kubernetes is a trademark of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. Bunker is not affiliated with any of them. The comparison is based on public offer models at the time of publication.