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Hardened Amazon AMI with kubectl for EKS

Kalimorph | 1.24.07072025

Linux/Unix, Amazon Linux 4.14.133-113.112.amzn2.x86_64 - 64-bit Amazon Machine Image (AMI)

Reviews from AWS customer

27 AWS reviews

External reviews

4 reviews
from

External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.


    Bavan Balakrishnan

Facilitates fast deployment and simplifies management

  • June 24, 2025
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

We are migrating our services into container services. We build websites and all of our products' backends are based on Amazon EKS.

What is most valuable?

The simplicity and management portal make it a neat solution. You don't have to fiddle around with too many open source tools, as it's just a comprehensive solution.

We use the pipeline, which is critical for us to deploy automatically. This eliminates manual intervention, which is really helpful.

What needs improvement?

We initially had some issues getting the logging out of it, because what they're providing into CloudTrail is what we get. If we wanted to go in-depth, we had to deploy third-party tools. We did try the sidecar way of getting the logs. Ideally, if the platform was able to provide those kinds of valuable logs, that would be beneficial. Adding enhanced logging capabilities would be a nice improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using the solution for three plus years.

What other advice do I have?

Time to value is good with fast deployment and very good documentation that is really helpful.

I don't personally deal with the costing part, but I think it's a fair amount. That's the only reason we're using it continuously, as otherwise we would have moved somewhere else.

The implementation was done in-house.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution a 9.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)


    Amit Anand

Has experienced seamless integration and robust support while benefiting from infrastructure automation

  • June 19, 2025
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

The use cases for the product involve provisioning of infrastructure and auto provisioning of infrastructure.

I have managed on-premise deployments in my use case with a Helm chart.

What is most valuable?

The biggest advantages of Amazon EKS include load balancing, auto scalability, and platform integration.

The solution includes automated node provisioning features.

The integration with AWS services involves platform services only.

What needs improvement?

We usually get deployed and only need to tweak the source code; however, I think the monitoring part and observability part could be improved.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been selling it for almost two years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of Amazon EKS deserves a perfect rating of ten.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support from Amazon deserves a rating of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

I would rate the ease of installing Amazon EKS in the middle area, giving it a five.

What other advice do I have?

I have moved to pre-sales activity now.

I am selling Kubernetes Engine from Amazon.

I can rate Amazon EKS as nine because I just need to see some improvement.

I want to be a reference for Amazon.

The overall rating for Amazon EKS is 9 out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?


    Hari_Rajendiran

Platform engineers configure for seamless microservices deployment and developers benefit from enhanced productivity

  • June 12, 2025
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

Our typical use case for Amazon EKS is that we have a number of applications and microservices that we host in EKS. We have a separate code base for the infrastructure platform, and the microservice team and the application team will be deploying their microservices on their own. We have configured it in a way that it could be easily accessible for developers as well as the platform engineers; we just platformize things. Earlier, I was using ECS, and the reason we use Amazon EKS is for better adaptation of Kubernetes, fitting our multi-tenant model.

What is most valuable?

The best features of Amazon EKS are that it is very plain by itself, but we use a number of optimizations, such as Carpenter for scaling and node auto-scaling, and Keda for application and microservices auto-scaling, as an event-based auto-scaler. Additionally, we use Portainer less, and for configuration, we utilize Cert Manager and Istio. It's not only Amazon EKS but a combination of various components within it.

By default, if you just install Amazon EKS, you can deploy your application, but to have it enterprise-ready, you have to configure a number of other things that will boost productivity.

What needs improvement?

Amazon EKS's deep integration with AWS services, such as IAM and elastic load balancing, has created some challenges. For example, we have something in place already, and there are some issues with enabling FIPS, which is FedRAMP compliant for the load balancers. You cannot change the SSL policy for the load balancer; I am not sure if it has been patched by AWS yet. However, apart from that, we use it effectively, and it is more flexible.

Regarding built-in observability in Amazon EKS, there is CloudWatch and CloudTrail. However, you cannot profile the applications; we can collect logs in S3, but there is no streaming solution available. Only CloudWatch exists, so we use other tools for observability and do not depend solely on CloudWatch, only relying on it for crucial workloads and infrastructure logs.

Amazon EKS can be improved by having the maintenance of Kubernetes versions managed better, as everything is handled by the Kubernetes team and possibly a separate team at AWS. We have to constantly maintain upgrades and ensure EKS add-ons are up-to-date, requiring us to upgrade the Kubernetes version and releases. They could provide a managed service in the backend instead of making customers handle it; we are currently doing it, but it's a regular activity we do per quarter.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have around six years of experience with Amazon EKS.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon EKS is a stable solution, as it is only available in AWS alone.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution for us.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before using Amazon EKS, I was using ECS. I switched from ECS to Amazon EKS because our product design changed. With numerous small services that you don't want to manage the backend infrastructure for, you can easily deploy and let it be with ECS; it is a more straightforward solution. However, considering cost with Amazon EKS, it may be pretty high, but it serves its purpose very effectively without management overhead.

If you are going with Amazon EKS, you must change your deployment strategy and develop applications for Kubernetes, writing deployments and pods, or stateful sets, which provides more flexibility. There are pros and cons to both solutions, and you have to evaluate which will suit your use case. In our situation, we had some applications in ECS as in Amazon EKS, and that was an architectural decision discussed internally within teams.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup with Amazon EKS was hard initially, but being accustomed to it now, it's not that difficult; it's relatively easy.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI with Amazon EKS; we have a separate team actively working on it. We have cost explorer available, and a bill forecast based on usage allows us to determine whether resources are underutilized or overutilized. You can generate reports and analyze them. I have done this for ECS, but for Amazon EKS, I haven't worked on cost savings directly, as there is a separate team responsible for that.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My experience with pricing for Amazon EKS is limited as there's a separate team for that, and I do not have much knowledge of specifics. However, the pricing is based on the instance type we use in the EKS node group, so it should cover that aspect; their pricing is generally easy to understand in terms of instances.

What other advice do I have?

We are using a cloud deployment model. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Amazon EKS an eight.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)


    reviewer1455381

Managed clusters provide simplicity but initial setup requires more knowledge

  • May 27, 2025
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

My main use cases for Amazon EKS are securing the clusters and providing mesh gateways between the clusters.

What is most valuable?

The features that I find useful in Amazon EKS are Istio, Webhooks, service accounts, and ReplicaSets with different service accounts and accounts that we work with.

The main benefits that I received from using Amazon EKS are that it is a managed cluster and offers simplicity.

What needs improvement?

I am not the right person to ask what could be improved in Amazon EKS to make this tool better for the next release. A continuation of the managed pieces would be beneficial because there is no integration of clusters. They are all separate with no real managed cluster type of capability.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Amazon EKS for about 3 and 1/2 to 4 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

The initial setup for Amazon EKS is not straightforward. Kubernetes is not an easy technology because there are many technologies in the cluster. You need to understand infrastructure code to deploy it and understand all of the requirements alongside it. You cannot simply request deployment of EKS clusters as it does not work that way.

I would rate the setup for Amazon EKS as a three because I need to have other technologies and other tool sets to make it work. I cannot just go through Amazon's console and request a three-node cluster deployment because that does not work.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Regarding stability, Amazon EKS is stable. Once it is up, it works. I would rate it as a nine.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For scalability, Amazon EKS is scalable. I would rate it as a nine.

How are customer service and support?

I have never contacted customer support for any issues on Amazon EKS.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The solutions I evaluated before working with Amazon EKS include Grafana, Prometheus, K9s, Istio, and Consul.

The main benefits in Amazon EKS compared to those tools are that it is a different tool set completely, and they provide better visibility and connectivity.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup for Amazon EKS is not straightforward. Kubernetes is not an easy technology because there are many technologies in the cluster. You need to understand infrastructure code to deploy it and understand all of the requirements alongside it. You cannot simply request deployment of EKS clusters as it does not work that way.

I would rate the setup for Amazon EKS as a three because I need to have other technologies and other tool sets to make it work. I cannot just go through Amazon's console and request a three-node cluster deployment because that does not work.

What other advice do I have?

I suggest understanding the entire form before understanding Kubernetes. I would rate Amazon EKS as a seven out of ten because Kubernetes across all CSPs is complicated. I do not think it is an easy technology to give it anything more than a seven.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?


    Sâmeque Mendes

multi-application deployment using advanced networking and autoscaling features

  • April 28, 2025
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

I use Amazon EKS to provide the computing power for my applications. We have over thirty clusters in Amazon EKS. Our team uses Amazon EKS to deploy new applications using Helm and to manage our infrastructure. We use Amazon EKS to scale and deploy more applications using different namespaces. Amazon EKS services help us provide clusters where we deploy APIs, services, cron jobs, and other applications to support our services.

What is most valuable?

The features I find most valuable in Amazon EKS include the VPC CNI, which provides networking inside the cluster, and the EBS CSI driver, which is an example of the add-ons used with Amazon EKS. Kube-proxy for DNS is also a valuable feature. The features we use for managing container applications, like scheduling and scaling, simplify our use of Amazon EKS.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see improvements in the management capabilities that are native to AWS for Amazon EKS. Our current use involves using a different tool to administer the management, and I believe enhancing this aspect would be beneficial.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Amazon EKS for four or five years, mostly in financial services.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

During the initial setup, I needed to learn about Docker, networking, and microservices, which was a challenge as I didn't have a background in microservices. My first application took three months to deploy, but now, with automation and CI/CD, we can deploy cycles of twenty applications swiftly. Initially, two people were required to deploy Amazon EKS.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Amazon EKS is very stable, and when properly configured, I rate it ten out of ten. In my notes, it's a nine. I did experience some challenges with network stability but was able to resolve them with AWS technical support.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We use the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) to provide elasticity to our applications. This allows us to scale our applications or APIs as needed, offering reliability through the automation of scaling processes. I rate the scalability as higher than eight.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support from AWS for Amazon EKS is excellent. I rate it eight out of ten. Recently, we faced a network issue, and AWS technical support provided guidance to resolve the problem successfully. Their support was crucial for directing our efforts and solving our IP-related issues.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

My first experience with Amazon EKS was difficult, and I would rate the initial setup as two because it was challenging without prior experience in microservices. However, after the initial setup, my perception improved, and I now rate it as five or six.

What about the implementation team?

Two people were necessary to deploy my Amazon EKS.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We are making a significant effort to transform our usage of Amazon EKS, which was previously rated as eight or nine in terms of cost. Now, it stands at six or seven due to optimizing our workload.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I rate Amazon EKS as a nine out of ten. It's a very stable and reliable product.

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)


    Rock Wang

Managing complex environments effortlessly while focusing on growth

  • April 02, 2025
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

I use Amazon EKS for managing production environments. I have worked for different companies over the past three years, managing microservice applications on Amazon EKS to deploy application code to the environment, including the production environment. We use DevOps methodology to deploy these services.

What is most valuable?

The most beneficial aspect of Amazon EKS is that it helps manage the Kubernetes master node, so I don't need to maintain the master node, including tasks like upgrading. This allows me to focus on business code. If using services like Fargate, I only need to maintain my workload, simply uploading code that will be deployed to the Kubernetes cluster. This is especially beneficial for startup companies that lack the technical resources to manage the Kubernetes cluster. Furthermore, Amazon EKS allows me to utilize Kubernetes cluster-level expansion. If there’s insufficient resource on a machine, the cluster can automatically expand to add new nodes.

What needs improvement?

Although Amazon EKS is popular, there are areas for improvement. It could support more scenarios and plugins. Currently, some third-party plugins, like certain network plugins such as Weave CNI, might not be fully supported. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Amazon EKS for more than three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I haven't found any performance issues with Amazon EKS so far. To avoid potential performance issues, it is important to plan resources initially, ensuring there are enough compute resources like nodes to host applications.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Amazon EKS is very scalable, but scaling can sometimes cause trouble. When Amazon EKS scales up or down, there might be occasional intermediate pod interruptions, though it's rare.

How are customer service and support?

I have escalated some questions to AWS tech support before. I once faced a random issue where a pod abruptly shut down and restarted. Upon escalation, AWS helped me find the root cause. Overall, I would rate AWS tech support an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have experience with Azure AKS and some exposure to Google GKE. However, I mostly have experience with Amazon EKS.

How was the initial setup?

When I first set up Amazon EKS, I faced challenges because there are different setup methods. Using the console does not align well with DevOps. It is better to use EKS CTL or Terraform's IAC tools. Configuring role permission policies is the most challenging part, ensuring Amazon EKS has access to different services or databases.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have experience with Azure AKS and some exposure to Google GKE.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Amazon EKS for large companies, especially banks, due to AWS's extended support for Amazon EKS, its availability, and reliability. Amazon EKS offers a strong solution as part of a full suite, but it should be integrated with services like Lambda for a complete solution. On a scale of one to ten, I rate Amazon EKS an eight because there is still room for improvement. The overall product rating is eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)


    reviewer2677686

Configuring infrastructure efficiently and suggesting UI improvements for a smoother deployment

  • March 21, 2025
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I deal with application development. I have used AWS services for configuring elastic search, deploying in pods, and using the CI/CD pipeline with Jenkins to build and deploy applications.

What is most valuable?

Amazon EKS allows upscaling and downscaling by reallocating resources. It is possible to configure everything, monitor applications, and perform routing in pods, securing the application with whitelisting. Datadog can be used to trace applications for performance issues or errors. It is an effective platform for cloud operations on AWS, similar to its counterpart on Azure.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement in making Amazon EKS less error-prone when writing on the YAML file. A UI could help generate config files, simplifying the process for developers who are not architects. It is very time-consuming, and companies often expect developers to do everything, which can be overwhelming.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used AWS for three or four years, specifically for Amazon EKS for two years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

It is not easy to configure Amazon EKS, and it requires very detailed attention to configuration and deployment. It can be error-prone and time-consuming to redeploy until a stable configuration is achieved.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Amazon EKS is effective for scalability, providing features for upscaling and downscaling resources as needed.

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support team is good, but they do not instruct on what to do. Having to know what questions to ask is essential. The documentation is adequate but could include more practical insights.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing structure is beneficial for large companies who pay for what they use, but it is not affordable for startups. Offering a free version could help small companies.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, Amazon EKS is a great technology, but the knowledge required to use it is scarce. It is a skill in itself, and developers must undertake multiple roles, which can be difficult. I rate Amazon EKS a seven because it is not easy for developers to configure without a solid base of knowledge.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)


    Venkatramanan C.S.

Amazon EKS: Why It Shines, Where It Struggles, and How It Can Improve

  • November 20, 2024
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

I am working mostly on AWS infrastructure services, such as EC2, EKS, RDS, CloudFormation, IAM, and CloudWatch. I have around one year of experience with Kubernetes and have been using AWS services continuously for three years. My responsibilities include working on server storage, containerization, monitoring, and access policies.

What is most valuable?

Simplifies Kubernetes setup and management.AWS handles cluster upgrades, patches, and availability.Seamlessly integrates with AWS services like IAM, CloudWatch, and VPC.Access to advanced networking, security, and monitoring tools.EKS automatically deploys the Kubernetes control plane across multiple AWS Availability Zones for fault tolerance.

What needs improvement?

  • EKS incurs an additional management fee ($0.10 per hour per cluster) along with EC2 or Fargate costs.May be expensive for smaller workloads compared to alternatives like AWS ECS.Requires expertise to configure and manage Kubernetes resources effectively.Networking (e.g., setting up VPCs, subnets, and service endpoints) can be complex.Simplifies managing multiple Kubernetes clusters, especially for organizations with hybrid or multi-region setups.Integrated dashboards for Kubernetes metrics, logs, and traces.Simplifies observability without needing third-party tools.
  • For how long have I used the solution?

    I have around one year of experience using Kubernetes with AWS.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    In my project, AWS EKS has shown stability without any issues.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    EKS offers excellent scalability, especially compared to Docker Swarm. The ability to scale based on requirements by deploying additional containers is a strong point for Kubernetes.

    How are customer service and support?

    I have not contacted technical support regarding EKS.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I have explored Google Kubernetes Service in my personal projects but did not work on any other Kubernetes projects before EKS.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is relatively straightforward when using the AWS Management Console. Setting up clusters and nodes is simplified through AWS's interface compared to on-premises. It took approximately 15 to 20 minutes to complete the setup.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I do not have specific details on EKS's pricing and licensing compared to other services. However, in general, deploying in the cloud offers lower latency and high availability and reduces manual intervention and responsibility, leading to some operational efficiencies.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I have worked with Google Kubernetes Service in my personal space but have not evaluated others for professional use.

    What other advice do I have?

    For large-scale enterprise solutions, Kubernetes is recommended due to its scalability. Despite costing considerations, EKS alleviates the burden of procedural complexities, making it suitable for enterprise-level applications.

    I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Amazon Web Services (AWS)


      reviewer1426713

    Has good scalability features

    • November 12, 2024
    • Review from a verified AWS customer

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary use case for Amazon EKS involves microservices and micro frontends.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable features of Amazon EKS are its scalability features.

    What needs improvement?

    There is room for improvement in the interface of Amazon EKS. Additionally, they are involved in activities like pipeline management, pod checking, and error logging, which could suggest areas for further improvements.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have more than three years of experience working with Amazon EKS.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I would rate the stability of Amazon EKS ten out of ten, indicating it is highly stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I would rate the scalability of Amazon EKS an eight out of ten, suggesting it has high scalability.

    How are customer service and support?

    I do not have experience contacting Amazon's technical support.

    How was the initial setup?

    I was not involved in the setup of Amazon EKS.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would recommend Amazon EKS to other people for various reasons. That said, I also rate this solution seven to eight out of ten overall.


      reviewer1280193

    With the serverless option, you can deploy everything and AWS handles the infrastructure

    • November 11, 2024
    • Review from a verified AWS customer

    What is our primary use case?

    Amazon EKS is used as a container orchestration platform. Customers use it to develop applications which are containerized and need to be deployed. Kubernetes is the most popular platform across the industry.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Amazon EKS offers replatforming and migration capabilities to our customers, enabling them to move from AWS to other platforms like AKS with minimal changes. It has also helped in smooth integration with other AWS services, especially API gateways and databases.

    What is most valuable?

    The serverless capability of Amazon EKS is quite valuable. Earlier, it was necessary to know the exact configuration, including the number of pods and nodes. Now, with the serverless option, you can deploy everything and AWS handles the infrastructure.

    What needs improvement?

    Amazon EKS could improve in its pricing model, particularly for medium-sized customers who might find the support costs high.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have used Amazon EKS for the past five to six years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I rate the stability of Amazon EKS as ten out of ten. It is highly stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Amazon EKS has high scalability. It can scale very well according to needs, and it doesn't have any issues with scalability.

    How are customer service and support?

    Amazon's technical support is quite good, especially for those who purchase support services. As a partner, we receive excellent support due to our relationship with Amazon.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup of Amazon EKS is much less complex compared to setting up Kubernetes manually on Linux virtual machines, as it takes away the complexities of installing and configuring everything.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We have experience working with both EKS from AWS and AKS from Microsoft Azure, as well as Google GKE.

    What other advice do I have?

    For those who are Amazon customers and want to deploy containerized applications, Amazon EKS is the best option.

    I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud

    If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

    Amazon Web Services (AWS)