As cloud computing continues to transform the way businesses operate, organizations are always seeking efficient, reliable methods to deploy and manage their applications. Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers two popular solutions for application deployment: AWS Elastic Beanstalk (EB) and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS). While both services serve vital deployment needs, migrating from Elastic Beanstalk to EKS can unlock deeper customization, advanced scaling, and access to the broader Kubernetes ecosystem.
In this guide, we’ll compare Elastic Beanstalk and EKS across their core features, scalability, flexibility, cost implications, and suitability for various use cases. We’ll also provide a step-by-step approach for migrating from Elastic Beanstalk to EKS, highlight potential pitfalls, and show how tools like Kapstan simplify the migration. By the end, you’ll have a clear understanding of which platform best meets your application needs—and how to seamlessly transition from EB to EKS if you’re ready for the next level of cloud-native deployment.
AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs. EKS at a Glance
For a quick overview, here’s a side-by-side comparison:
AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs. EKS:
Elastic Beanstalk
Elastic Beanstalk is a fully managed Platform as a Service (PaaS) by AWS that streamlines the process of deploying and managing applications. It supports multiple programming languages (Java, .NET, Node.js, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Go) and automatically handles capacity provisioning, load balancing, and application health monitoring.
- Simplified application deployment: Quickly deploy applications without worrying about underlying infrastructure details.
- Automated infrastructure management: The platform takes care of provisioning and managing AWS resources like EC2 instances, load balancers, and Auto Scaling groups.
Summary: If you need a fast, no-fuss deployment with minimal customization, Elastic Beanstalk is a strong choice. It’s best for straightforward apps and teams that don’t want to handle infrastructure intricacies.
Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)
Amazon EKS is a managed container orchestration service that leverages Kubernetes—the de facto standard for managing containerized applications at scale. EKS abstracts away the complexity of managing the Kubernetes control plane, integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, and allows you to harness the full potential of the Kubernetes ecosystem.
- Kubernetes-native experience: Take advantage of open-source Kubernetes for container orchestration.
- Fine-grained control: Customize Kubernetes clusters, configure networking and security settings, and integrate easily with third-party tools and services. Tools like Kapstan can further simplify EKS adoption by automating cluster provisioning, deployment workflows, and best practices.
Summary: EKS suits organizations seeking the flexibility, portability, and deep customization of Kubernetes. If you’re building complex or microservices-based applications, EKS is ideal for advanced orchestration and scalability.
Scalability and Performance
Elastic Beanstalk
- Automated resource adjustments: Elastic Beanstalk can scale instances based on simple metrics (CPU, network usage), suitable for many applications.
- Potential scalability bottlenecks: The limited ability to customize how resources scale can hamper performance under heavier or more complex workloads.
Key Takeaway: Elastic Beanstalk works well for smaller to medium-scale scenarios where you’re okay with standardized scaling behaviors. Complex scaling demands will require a deeper level of tuning that EB doesn’t easily offer.
Amazon EKS
- Advanced Kubernetes scaling: EKS uses powerful Kubernetes features like the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler, which adjusts resources based on real-time demand.
- Optimized resource usage: Fine-grained scaling helps reduce costs and ensure applications always have just enough capacity to run smoothly.
- Resilience and recovery: Kubernetes offers built-in fault tolerance; if pods fail, the system automatically replaces them.
Key Takeaway: EKS excels at high-scale, high-traffic environments. With Kubernetes’ autoscaling capabilities, you can precisely tune performance to handle surges in demand.
Flexibility and Customization
Elastic Beanstalk
- Rapid deployment: Pre-configured environments allow teams to get up and running quickly.
- Reduced complexity: For teams with limited DevOps experience, EB manages provisioning, updates, and patching.
- Limited configuration: You’re constrained by EB’s environment templates, which may not support advanced networking or security needs.
Key Takeaway: Choose Elastic Beanstalk if you prioritize simplicity over granular infrastructure control. It’s a great option for small, relatively simple apps.
Amazon EKS
- Kubernetes’ full feature set: Define custom resource definitions (CRDs), network policies, advanced security, and more.
- Tailored environments: Control how your pods are deployed, how traffic flows, and how security policies are enforced.
- Third-party ecosystem: Integrate seamlessly with tools like Prometheus, Grafana, and Helm for monitoring, logging, and package management. Platforms like Kapstan provide pre-built templates to reduce Kubernetes complexity.
Key Takeaway: EKS is purpose-built for teams needing deep customization and the flexibility to integrate with a broad ecosystem of tools.
Portability and Vendor Lock-In
Elastic Beanstalk
- AWS-centric dependencies: Applications deployed via EB often rely on AWS-specific configurations, making them harder to move to another cloud.
- Migration complexity: Rewriting or re-architecting may be required if you choose to move your workloads off AWS.
Key Takeaway: Beanstalk can lead to a tighter lock-in with AWS services, potentially complicating future moves to other platforms or clouds.
Amazon EKS
- Platform-neutral design: Kubernetes was built to run anywhere—on-premises, in hybrid clouds, or across multiple cloud providers.
- Consistent APIs and tools: Kubernetes’ standardization simplifies application portability and helps maintain a flexible, multi-cloud strategy.
Key Takeaway: EKS (and Kubernetes) provides far more portability, making it easier to adapt your infrastructure strategy if you ever need to run in different environments.
Cost Optimization
Elastic Beanstalk
- Underlying AWS resources: You pay for the EC2 instances, load balancers, and databases you run. EB’s simplicity can mask opportunities for cost savings.
- Limited visibility and control: Less granular configuration can lead to overprovisioning if scaling rules aren’t carefully tuned.
Key Takeaway: Elastic Beanstalk offers straightforward pricing. However, you can quickly overspend if your application experiences bursts or requires specific scaling rules.
Amazon EKS
- Per-cluster fee plus resource costs: You pay a small hourly fee for each EKS cluster, plus the cost of EC2 instances (or other compute like Fargate) and additional AWS services.
- Precision in resource management: Kubernetes allows you to rightsize container resources, reducing waste.
- Advanced autoscaling: The Horizontal Pod Autoscaler, Karpenter, and third-party tools help match capacity to demand in real time.
Key Takeaway: With EKS, you have more levers to optimize costs—if you leverage Kubernetes’ fine-grained controls. Tools like Kapstan can automatically apply recommended best practices to save money on your clusters.
Migrating from Elastic Beanstalk to EKS: Step-by-Step
Transitioning from Elastic Beanstalk to EKS can feel daunting, but a clear migration plan ensures minimal disruption and maximum benefits. Below is an outline of how to approach this move:
- Assess Your Current Elastic Beanstalk Environment
- Identify dependencies, AWS services used (e.g., RDS, S3), and performance needs.
- Gather existing EB configuration settings.
- Containerize Your Application
- Package your code into Docker containers if not already done.
- Ensure each service or microservice is containerized appropriately.
- Configure Kubernetes Manifests
- Define Deployments, Services, Ingress, and other Kubernetes objects.
- Kapstan provides prebuilt templates, so you don’t have to write extensive YAML from scratch.
- Provision Your EKS Cluster
- Set up networking (VPC, subnets, security groups) and IAM roles.
- Use IaC (Infrastructure as Code) or Kapstan’s automation to create best-practice clusters.
- Deploy and Test
- Push container images to a repository (e.g., Amazon ECR).
- Apply Kubernetes manifests to the EKS cluster, then validate application functionality.
- Refine Autoscaling and Monitoring
- Configure the Horizontal Pod Autoscaler or other autoscaling policies. We recommend installing Karpenter for node scaling to keep costs down. If curious, feel free to check out our analysis of Karpenter vs Cluster Autoscaler, and why we recommend Karpenter for teams looking to optimize their AWS costs.
- Integrate monitoring and logging (e.g., CloudWatch, Prometheus, Grafana).
- Decommission Elastic Beanstalk
- Once EKS is stable, retire your EB environment to avoid double costs.
- Keep backups until you’re certain the new setup is running smoothly.
Common Beanstalk to EKS Migration Pitfalls (and How to Avoid Them)
- Overlooking App Dependencies
- Solution: Map out all EB integrations (databases, queue services, caches) and replicate or connect them correctly in EKS.
- Underestimating Kubernetes’ Learning Curve
- Solution: Train or hire Kubernetes-savvy engineers. Alternatively, let Kapstan handle the heavy lifting of cluster setup and configuration.
- Ignoring Proper Resource Management
- Solution: Use Kubernetes resource requests/limits and autoscalers to optimize performance and costs.
How Kapstan Helps
Kapstan automates many of these steps—from provisioning a secure EKS cluster to deploying containerized applications—so you can move from EB to EKS with minimal manual intervention. By abstracting the complexities of Kubernetes configuration, Kapstan helps your team focus on building features, not managing infrastructure.
3 clicks to provision a secure, compliant, EKS cluster...
A few clicks to configure and deploy microservices...
And logs+metrics are a single click away...
AWS Elastic Beanstalk vs EKS: Conclusion and Next Steps
Choosing between Elastic Beanstalk and EKS comes down to your application’s complexity, your team’s expertise, and your longer-term cloud strategy. Elastic Beanstalk offers a fully managed environment well-suited for rapid deployments and smaller teams, whereas EKS opens the door to the full power of Kubernetes—including finer control over scalability, resource optimization, and multi-cloud portability.
For organizations looking to migrate from Elastic Beanstalk to EKS, a phased and well-documented approach is crucial. Tools like Kapstan further streamline this process by automating infrastructure provisioning, simplifying Kubernetes configuration, and providing best-practice defaults—so you can seamlessly transition to EKS without the usual complexities of container orchestration.
