Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)
AKS is Microsoft’s managed Kubernetes offering, handling the control plane so you can deploy and scale containerized applications without managing master nodes. It focuses on secure cluster operations and fast delivery for workloads running in the Azure ecosystem, abstracting away the complexity of Kubernetes maintenance while keeping compute resources under your control.
This setup suits teams already committed to Azure who want managed orchestration but expect to pay for every hour of cluster uptime. There is no free tier, so even small development clusters incur costs starting at $0.0122 per hour. You pay for the managed control plane regardless of node usage, which means idle clusters still generate charges.
- Free tier No
- Starting price from $0.0122 per hour
- Regions 12 · 6 continents
- SLA uptime 99.99%
- Compliance 13 certifications
- Provider health A
Decision score
Computed from catalog breadth, pricing, provider reliability (uptime & SLA), community signal, and ecosystem (compliance & regions). Weighted equally.
Trust & reach via Microsoft Azure
- C5
- CSA STAR
- FedRAMP
- GDPR
- HIPAA
- ISO 27001
- ISO 27017
- ISO 27018
- ISO 9001
- PCI DSS
- SOC 1 Type II
- SOC 2 Type II
- compute99.99%
- database99.99%
- networking99.99%
- storage99.99%
12 regions across 6 continents
- Africa
- Asia
- Europe
- North America
- Oceania
- South America
Pricing tiers 3
| Tier / Plan | Price | Unit | Region |
|---|---|---|---|
| Automatic | $0.0122 | per hour | eastus |
| FreeTierInfrastructureCost | $0.0500 | per hour | eastus |
| Standard | $0.6000 | per hour | eastus |
Prices in USD. Micro-prices are quoted per 1M units; "< $0.000001" marks rates below our stored precision. Subject to change — check the provider's official page.
Alternatives on other providers
Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) has the highest starting price of 2 comparable services — $0.0122 per hour.
- AWS Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) $0.0015 per hour Compare
- Google Cloud Platform Google Kubernetes Engine $50.00 per 1M GB/hours Compare
- Linode (Akamai) Kubernetes no price Compare