focusnet K8s vs. AWS EKS
Sovereign Kubernetes without hidden costs. 50–57% cheaper than AWS EKS at the same cluster size (on-demand through 3-year commit) — plus full GDPR compliance.
Which focusnet tier compares to EKS?
AWS EKS is a managed control plane model. focusnet offers two comparable tiers — depending on how much control you need.
FCS K8s Business
vCluster Virtual with its own public IP, Gateway API, and an isolated control plane on shared hardware. focusnet manages the control plane.
from €169/month
FCS K8s Dedicated M
Dedicated cluster with its own CP and worker nodes, dedicated VLAN, GPU options. focusnet continues to manage the control plane.
from €499 + €99 mgmt
Comparison at a Glance
| Criterion | focusnet K8s Business | AWS EKS |
|---|---|---|
| Kubernetes distribution | RKE2 (SUSE Rancher Prime) | AWS's own EKS distribution |
| Management UI | SUSE Rancher Prime included | No cluster UI (AWS Console only) |
| Control plane costs | included in the tier price | ~$73 USD/month per cluster |
| CNI | KubeOVN | Amazon VPC CNI |
| Gateway API | included (instead of nginx ingress) | add-on only (e.g., Istio) |
| PVC storage | included per tier | EBS extra: ~$0.088 USD/GB/month |
| Egress traffic | generous fair-use allowance | ~$0.09 USD/GB beyond 1 GB |
| Container registry | Harbor included (up to 200 GB) | ECR: ~$0.10 USD/GB/month |
| Load balancer | included | ALB/NLB: ~$22 USD/month |
| Data location | Germany only (Berlin / Hannover) | EU region selectable, US CLOUD Act |
| GDPR | fully compliant | legally contested (Schrems II) |
| US CLOUD Act | not applicable | yes, AWS is a US company |
| Support language | German | English (German at extra cost) |
| Pricing model | fixed monthly prices or pay-per-resource | pay-as-you-go with 30+ line items |
What a Comparable Production Cluster Costs
Business M scenario: 8 vCPU, 16 GB RAM, 250 GB storage, 1 TB egress / month — calculated apples-to-apples against AWS EKS in Frankfurt (eu-central-1).
focusnet Business M
Managed CP, dedicated IP, Rancher UI
€259
cancel monthly — 12-mo: €220 (−15%) / 24-mo: €194 (−25%) / 36-mo: €168 (−35%)
- PVC storage 250 GB included
- Harbor registry included
- 1 TB egress under fair use
- Cluster UI (Rancher) included
- Basic monitoring included
AWS EKS (Frankfurt)
On-demand, same size (8 vCPU / 16 GB)
~€520
1-yr RI no-upfront: ~€445 / 3-yr RI no-upfront: ~€393 (RI discounts compute only; NAT, egress, and ALB remain at full price)
- EKS control plane (~€67)
- 2× c5.xlarge compute (~€260)
- EBS gp3 250 GB (~€24)
- NAT + 1 TB egress (~€152)
- ALB + cluster UI extra (~€20 / not available)
Data Sovereignty
A German company with data center locations in Germany (Berlin, Hannover). No US CLOUD Act, full Schrems II compliance, data processing agreement (DPA) under GDPR Art. 28 included.
Predictable Costs
Fixed monthly prices instead of 30+ variable AWS line items. PVC storage, egress (fair use), load balancer, and cluster UI included — no surprises at the end of the month.
No Vendor Lock-In
Standards-compliant Kubernetes, open-source stack (RKE2, KubeOVN, Harbor, Prometheus). Migrate back or sideways without rewriting your code.
„We ran EKS for three years — and for three years, the bill was different every month. With focusnet, we know what the month will cost before it starts."
Switch to Predictable Costs and True Data Sovereignty
Try it free for 14 days or start right away on the Free Tier. Compare with your own workloads.