The EKS Anywhere alternative for hybrid Kubernetes
Fully managed Kubernetes on-premises and across clouds. No Cluster API expertise required, no $24K/cluster/year price tag, no AWS lock-in. Start free today.
Fully managed Kubernetes on-premises and across clouds. No Cluster API expertise required, no $24K/cluster/year price tag, no AWS lock-in. Start free today.
| Features | |  |
|---|---|---|
What it does | Self-managed on-premises EKS distribution | Fully managed unified Kubernetes platform |
Operational burden | You manage full cluster lifecycle, upgrades, patching | Cloudfleet handles everything end-to-end |
Expertise required | Deep Cluster API and Kubernetes knowledge | Standard Kubernetes, no specialist skills needed |
Pricing | $24K/cluster/year + $60K+/year AWS Enterprise Support | Free tier available, Pro at $79/month all-inclusive |
Data sovereignty | US CLOUD Act applies to all Amazon entities | European company, EU-native providers supported |
Multi-cloud | AWS-only ecosystem, shrinking platform support | AWS, GCP, Azure, Hetzner, on-premises, and 12+ providers |
Cloudfleet is CNCF-conformant, allowing seamless migration of any conformant clusters while avoiding vendor lock-in.
Cloudfleet dynamically provisions compute capacity based on real-time demand.
Add on-premises nodes to your cluster with a single command and schedule pods across both on-premises and cloud nodes.
Nodes securely connect via an encrypted network spanning multiple clouds and regions.
Amazon EKS Anywhere puts the full operational burden on your team: control plane management, Kubernetes upgrades, OS patching, node health, and disaster recovery all require deep Cluster API (CAPI) expertise and dedicated platform engineers. The Enterprise subscription costs $24,000/cluster/year, and you cannot purchase it without an AWS Enterprise Support plan starting at $5,000/month. The platform is also shrinking: CloudStack and Snow providers were removed in v0.26, and AWS now steers customers toward EKS Hybrid Nodes for connected environments. Cloudfleet eliminates this operational complexity. As a fully managed platform, Cloudfleet handles the entire cluster lifecycle, from control plane provisioning to node management, networking, security patching, and upgrades. Deploy across AWS, GCP, Azure, Hetzner, OVHcloud, and on-premises infrastructure from a single unified cluster. No CAPI expertise needed, no mandatory support prerequisites, and no per-cluster pricing that penalizes multi-cluster architectures.
EKS Anywhere requires Cluster API knowledge for provisioning, upgrades, and troubleshooting. Bare metal upgrades require spare hardware servers. EKS Hybrid Nodes still leaves you managing node provisioning, OS patching, and mixed CNI configurations. Cloudfleet handles everything end-to-end. If your team knows Kubernetes, they can deploy production clusters in minutes.
A typical 3-cluster EKS Anywhere deployment costs at least $114,000/year ($54K in subscriptions plus $60K minimum for AWS Enterprise Support) before any infrastructure costs. EKS Hybrid Nodes charges $0.02/vCPU-hour with hyperthreading doubling the bill. Cloudfleet starts free for up to 24 vCPUs. The Pro tier is $79/month with support included.
Amazon is a US company subject to the CLOUD Act. The AWS European Sovereign Cloud in Brandenburg is still 100% owned by a US Amazon entity. Amazon has acknowledged it cannot rule out US data access. Cloudfleet is European-headquartered and supports EU-native providers like Hetzner, OVHcloud, and Exoscale with no CLOUD Act exposure.
EKS Anywhere only runs on your own infrastructure (vSphere, bare metal, Nutanix) and ties you to the AWS ecosystem through EKS Distro and mandatory Enterprise Support. EKS Hybrid Nodes connects directly to an AWS cloud control plane. Cloudfleet natively spans 12+ cloud providers and on-premises infrastructure from a single unified cluster.
Cloudfleet seamlessly extends your cluster anywhere, turning any hardware - even in your office or home - into a modern enterprise cluster.
Using Cloudfleet together with Hetzner allowed us to bring up a managed Kubernetes cluster just as quick as with any US-based hyper-scaler, but with the benefit of being EU hosted which is very valuable in today's times.
By combining our standardized configurations with the powerful automation features of the Cloudfleet platform, we've built a development workflow that is fast, secure, and incredibly efficient.
Perfect balance between flexibility and managed service - and the support is outstanding.
We deploy to customer infrastructure without changing how we build or manage Kubernetes.
It is easy to build a multi-cloud setup without getting locked into any single provider.
It is easy to build a multi-cloud setup without vendor lock-in.
Cloudfleet lets us scale our game servers across multiple providers - reliably and affordably.
Cloudfleet not only cut our infrastructure costs - it saved us hours of work by taking cluster management off our plate.
Run Kubernetes consistently across public cloud, private infrastructure, and on-prem environments, with a single control plane and unified operational model.
Operate, scale, and migrate Kubernetes clusters across environments using a consistent, opinionated platform that reduces operational overhead.
Transparent pricing and infrastructure control help you avoid hyperscaler lock-in, hidden fees, and unexpected cost growth as your workloads scale.
Retain full portability of your clusters, workloads, and tooling by running standard Kubernetes without proprietary extensions or forced dependencies.
Designed for production workloads, with operational tooling, escalation paths, and support processes built to meet enterprise reliability requirements.
Secure by default, with isolation, encryption, and access controls designed to meet the requirements of regulated and security-conscious organizations.
Create your free Cloudfleet Kubernetes cluster in minutes - no setup hassle, no cost. Get started instantly with the always-free Basic plan.