Amazon ECS / Fargate Deployment
Containers that deploy without downtime, and that stop deploying when the new version is broken.
From $649 3–7 days
Amazon EKS / Kubernetes Infrastructure
A cluster built to be operated, not just created — upgrades, ingress, identity and cost included.
Price and scope
From $1,099
Typically $1,099–$2,799, fixed in writing before anything starts.
What moves it up
- Multi-tenant workloads, where namespace isolation has to be real rather than a naming convention
- A service mesh, which roughly doubles the operational surface
- GitOps, where the cluster's desired state lives in a repository and has to be bootstrapped
What actually goes wrong
Creating an EKS cluster takes twenty minutes and creates an obligation that lasts years. The bill for that obligation arrives at the first version upgrade: EKS supports each Kubernetes version for about fourteen months and then moves you to extended support at six times the control-plane price, so a cluster nobody has upgraded quietly goes from seventy-odd dollars a month to over four hundred. Meanwhile the things that make a cluster operable — an ingress controller somebody owns, pod identity instead of node-wide IAM, and a way to see what a namespace costs — are the ones nobody sets up on day one because the cluster works without them.
How I find it
aws eks describe-cluster --query 'cluster.[version,platformVersion]' against the current supported listaws eks list-addons and describe-addon — whether add-ons are managed or hand-installed and driftingkubectl get pods -A -o json, read for containers running as root or with no resource limitsIRSA or Pod Identity in use, versus an instance role every pod on the node can borrow
What you get
- A cluster defined as code, with node groups sized and an upgrade path written down
- Pod-level IAM through IRSA or Pod Identity, so a compromised pod does not inherit the node's permissions
- An ingress controller with TLS, and DNS managed rather than hand-edited
- Resource requests and limits set, so one workload cannot starve the rest of the node
- Logging, metrics and per-namespace cost visibility, configured before anyone needs them
Questions
Do I actually need Kubernetes?
Probably not, and I will say so before taking the work. For a handful of services with one team, ECS does the same job with a fraction of the operational weight. Kubernetes earns its cost when you have many teams, genuine multi-tenancy, or a portability requirement somebody outside engineering owns.
What does it cost to run an EKS cluster?
About seventy-two dollars a month for the control plane, plus your nodes, plus load balancers. The number that catches people is extended support — roughly six times the control-plane rate once your version falls out of standard support, which is why the upgrade path is a deliverable rather than an afterthought.
How do upgrades work, and how often?
Roughly annually if you want to stay inside standard support, and it is a real piece of work each time: control plane, then node groups, then add-ons, with deprecated APIs checked before any of it. The cluster is built so that sequence is documented and rehearsable rather than rediscovered.
Can you migrate us from ECS, or from self-managed Kubernetes?
Yes to both, and they are different jobs. From ECS it is mostly translating task definitions and rethinking networking. From a self-managed cluster it is mostly about what you were doing on the control plane that EKS will not let you do — which is the part worth finding out early.
If this is not quite it
Docker Application Deployment on AWS
Your containers running on AWS with secrets out of the environment and logs off the disk.
From $459 2–5 days
Want this done?
Tell me what you are running and I will come back with a fixed price and a date. If it turns out you do not need this, I will say that instead.
Prefer to talk? Book a free call ↗ · Or hire me on Upwork ↗ · Typical reply within one business day.
Before you enquire
When I answer
Sunday to Thursday, 09:00–18:00 EET. Outside that I will still look, but I will not promise a time.
No 24/7 desk, and I will not pretend otherwise
One person, one time zone. If round-the-clock cover is what you need, you need a team, and I will say so rather than sell you a plan that cannot deliver it.
Your AWS bill stays yours
You pay Amazon directly and you keep control of the account. Nothing here resells your infrastructure or sits between you and your own billing.
A price that starts with "from" is a starting price
Every service page lists exactly what pushes a quote above it, before you ask. You get a fixed number in writing before any work begins.