Amazon EKS

Managed Kubernetes on AWS, where AWS runs the control plane and the worker nodes run in your account. A closed product from Amazon Web Services.

Side by side

6 open source alternatives to Amazon EKS
Tool	Fit	Stars	Licence	Terms	Self-hosted	Language	Latest	Last push
Kubernetes	Full replacement	128k	Apache-2.0	Open source	Yes	Go	v1.37.1	2026-10-06
Kubespray	Full replacement	19k	Apache-2.0	Open source	Yes	Jinja	v2.32.0	2026-10-06
Talos Linux	Full replacement	11k	MPL-2.0	Open source	Yes	Go	v1.14.2	2026-10-06
k0s	Full replacement	6.5k	Other	Open source	Yes	Go	v1.36.4+k0s.1	2026-10-06
Gardener	Full replacement	3.5k	Apache-2.0	Open source	Yes	Go	v1.151.2	2026-10-06
RKE2	Full replacement	2.4k	Apache-2.0	Open source	Yes	Go	v1.37.1+rke2r1	2026-10-05

6 alternatives

Production-Grade Container Scheduling and Management

The upstream project EKS runs, operated on your own machines including the control plane.

Deploy a Production Ready Kubernetes Cluster

Ansible playbooks that install production Kubernetes on your own servers or cloud instances.

Talos Linux is a modern Linux distribution built for Kubernetes.

Immutable Linux that only runs Kubernetes, managed through an API instead of SSH.

k0s - The Zero Friction Kubernetes

Conformant Kubernetes in a single binary, with the control plane on hosts you run.

Homogeneous Kubernetes clusters at scale on any infrastructure using hosted control planes.

Runs Kubernetes control planes as a service across clouds and on-premises infrastructure.

Conformant Kubernetes distribution with a CIS-hardened default configuration, on hosts you run.