Next Door
The product team next door is struggling with EKS.
Every time a Kubernetes version upgrade comes around, you can see the dread. The EKS Kubernetes support window is roughly 14 months. Before the version expires, you upgrade the cluster. Rotate node groups, audit deprecated APIs, verify Helm chart compatibility, chase Istio version alignment. All while keeping production workloads running. Work that has nothing to do with shipping features. Pure infrastructure maintenance.
The fork between EKS and ECS is where you place responsibility. Choosing Kubernetes means declaring that you'll manage the orchestration layer yourself. You avoid vendor lock-in, keep multi-cloud options open, gain ecosystem flexibility. The price is version chasing, service mesh operations, and designing secret management.
ECS is the opposite. Commit to the AWS ecosystem and service mesh, secret management — AWS handles it. The concept of cluster version management doesn't exist.
I'm lazy, so I chose ECS. I weighed it against freedom. Couldn't beat the laziness.
It's expensive, though. Having seen on-prem, really expensive. If the bill came to me personally, I'd have bolted long ago. But in Japan's hiring market, a good infrastructure engineer is rarer than a Bengal tiger. Factor in recruiting costs and the reality that hiring is a lottery, and the cost of AWS at least lets you see what's ahead.
In the end, it's drawing the line between what you manage and what you delegate. Whether you're at the scale and phase that needs Kubernetes' freedom, or at the phase where leaning into AWS and cutting operational cost is the right call. There are as many correct answers as there are organizations.
The team next door sometimes asks me about ECS. But migration is harder than anyone imagines. I only answer what's asked. No need to invite more incidents and more work for me.
Watching the team next door, I think about the cost of freedom. Over here, we're living comfortably inside the cage of AWS. If you're already inside the cage of an organization, even more so.