EKS vs GKE vs AKS in 2026 — an honest field comparison

Every Kubernetes vendor blog comparing the three managed offerings has the same problem: the author has only really used one of them, and the comparison is shaped by what their employer sells.

We don't sell a cloud — we manage Kubernetes on whichever cloud the customer chose. So we run all three (plus DOKS) side by side, every day. Here is the honest comparison as of mid-2026.

The headline takeaway

• GKE is the most polished. Best autoscaler, best upgrade story. Autopilot is genuinely useful.
• EKS is the most flexible, with the widest ecosystem and the deepest IAM model. Also the most operational overhead.
• AKS is the dark horse. Has caught up enormously since 2023; Entra ID integration is unmatched.

For a greenfield workload with free choice: GKE > AKS > EKS. If your business is already in AWS, EKS — the lock-in cost of switching outweighs the operational delta.

The full write-up covers:

• Control plane cost & upgrade cadence — the hidden $73/cluster EKS trap
• Networking architectures — VPC-native IPs vs alias ranges vs Overlay CNIs
• Identity: IRSA, Workload Identity, AKS Workload Identity — and the Entra integration that decides for Microsoft shops
• Autoscaling — why GKE Autopilot and EKS Karpenter beat plain Cluster Autoscaler
• Real per-workload cost numbers (10-node clusters, list vs discounted)
• The three questions we ask every customer before recommending

Reach out if you'd like a hand picking — or running it.