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  1. Stackups
  2. DevOps
  3. Continuous Deployment
  4. Server Configuration And Automation
  5. AWS OpsWorks vs Kubernetes

AWS OpsWorks vs Kubernetes

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

AWS OpsWorks
AWS OpsWorks
Stacks196
Followers222
Votes51
Kubernetes
Kubernetes
Stacks61.2K
Followers52.8K
Votes685

AWS OpsWorks vs Kubernetes: What are the differences?

Introduction

This markdown code provides a comparison between AWS OpsWorks and Kubernetes, highlighting their key differences.

  1. Managed Service vs. Open Source Platform: AWS OpsWorks is a fully managed service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), while Kubernetes is an open source container orchestration platform. OpsWorks abstracts away many of the tasks involved in managing infrastructure and applications, making it easier to set up and deploy applications. On the other hand, Kubernetes provides a more customizable and flexible solution, allowing users to deploy and manage containers across different environments.

  2. Infrastructure Setup: With OpsWorks, the infrastructure setup is simplified as it uses pre-configured stacks and layers. Users can choose from multiple stack configurations and set up instances with predefined roles. In contrast, Kubernetes requires manual setup of the infrastructure, including the configuration of nodes, networking, and storage.

  3. Container Orchestration: Kubernetes excels in container orchestration capabilities. It provides advanced features for managing containers, scaling applications, and distributing workloads across a cluster of nodes. OpsWorks, on the other hand, focuses more on managing the overall infrastructure and automating application deployment and configuration.

  4. Integrated Services: OpsWorks integrates well with other AWS services, such as Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon RDS, and Amazon S3. This allows users to leverage additional AWS features when building their applications. Kubernetes also offers integrations with various services, but the configurations need to be set up manually.

  5. Scaling and Auto-Healing: Kubernetes provides built-in functionality for scaling and auto-healing applications. It can automatically adjust the number of replicas based on load or predefined rules. It also has advanced capabilities to detect and recover from failures. OpsWorks also supports auto-scaling and auto-healing, but it requires more manual configuration compared to Kubernetes.

  6. Community Support and Ecosystem: Kubernetes has a large and active community, which contributes to its rapid development and innovation. It has a rich ecosystem of tools, plugins, and integrations that enhance its functionality. OpsWorks, being an AWS managed service, has limited community support and a narrower ecosystem compared to Kubernetes.

In summary, AWS OpsWorks is a managed service that simplifies infrastructure management and application deployment, while Kubernetes is an open source container orchestration platform that provides more customization and advanced container management capabilities.

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Advice on AWS OpsWorks, Kubernetes

Simon
Simon

Senior Fullstack Developer at QUANTUSflow Software GmbH

Apr 27, 2020

DecidedonGitHubGitHubGitHub PagesGitHub PagesMarkdownMarkdown

Our whole DevOps stack consists of the following tools:

  • @{GitHub}|tool:27| (incl. @{GitHub Pages}|tool:683|/@{Markdown}|tool:1147| for Documentation, GettingStarted and HowTo's) for collaborative review and code management tool
  • Respectively @{Git}|tool:1046| as revision control system
  • @{SourceTree}|tool:1599| as @{Git}|tool:1046| GUI
  • @{Visual Studio Code}|tool:4202| as IDE
  • @{CircleCI}|tool:190| for continuous integration (automatize development process)
  • @{Prettier}|tool:7035| / @{TSLint}|tool:5561| / @{ESLint}|tool:3337| as code linter
  • @{SonarQube}|tool:2638| as quality gate
  • @{Docker}|tool:586| as container management (incl. @{Docker Compose}|tool:3136| for multi-container application management)
  • @{VirtualBox}|tool:774| for operating system simulation tests
  • @{Kubernetes}|tool:1885| as cluster management for docker containers
  • @{Heroku}|tool:133| for deploying in test environments
  • @{nginx}|tool:1052| as web server (preferably used as facade server in production environment)
  • @{SSLMate}|tool:2752| (using @{OpenSSL}|tool:3091|) for certificate management
  • @{Amazon EC2}|tool:18| (incl. @{Amazon S3}|tool:25|) for deploying in stage (production-like) and production environments
  • @{PostgreSQL}|tool:1028| as preferred database system
  • @{Redis}|tool:1031| as preferred in-memory database/store (great for caching)

The main reason we have chosen Kubernetes over Docker Swarm is related to the following artifacts:

  • Key features: Easy and flexible installation, Clear dashboard, Great scaling operations, Monitoring is an integral part, Great load balancing concepts, Monitors the condition and ensures compensation in the event of failure.
  • Applications: An application can be deployed using a combination of pods, deployments, and services (or micro-services).
  • Functionality: Kubernetes as a complex installation and setup process, but it not as limited as Docker Swarm.
  • Monitoring: It supports multiple versions of logging and monitoring when the services are deployed within the cluster (Elasticsearch/Kibana (ELK), Heapster/Grafana, Sysdig cloud integration).
  • Scalability: All-in-one framework for distributed systems.
  • Other Benefits: Kubernetes is backed by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), huge community among container orchestration tools, it is an open source and modular tool that works with any OS.
12.8M views12.8M
Comments
Anis
Anis

Founder at Odix

Nov 7, 2020

Review

I recommend this : -Spring reactive for back end : the fact it's reactive (async) it consumes half of the resources that a sync platform needs (so less CPU -> less money). -Angular : Web Front end ; it's gives you the possibility to use PWA which is a cheap replacement for a mobile app (but more less popular). -Docker images. -Kubernetes to orchestrate all the containers. -I Use Jenkins / blueocean, ansible for my CI/CD (with Github of course) -AWS of course : u can run a K8S cluster there, make it multi AZ (availability zones) to be highly available, use a load balancer and an auto scaler and ur good to go. -You can store data by taking any managed DB or u can deploy ur own (cheap but risky).

You pay less money, but u need some technical 2 - 3 guys to make that done.

Good luck

115k views115k
Comments
Michael
Michael

CEO at asencis Ltd

Jan 5, 2021

Needs advice

We develop rapidly with docker-compose orchestrated services, however, for production - we utilise the very best ideas that Kubernetes has to offer: SCALE! We can scale when needed, setting a maximum and minimum level of nodes for each application layer - scaling only when the load balancer needs it. This allowed us to reduce our devops costs by 40% whilst also maintaining an SLA of 99.87%.

272k views272k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

AWS OpsWorks
AWS OpsWorks
Kubernetes
Kubernetes

Start from templates for common technologies like Ruby, Node.JS, PHP, and Java, or build your own using Chef recipes to install software packages and perform any task that you can script. AWS OpsWorks can scale your application using automatic load-based or time-based scaling and maintain the health of your application by detecting failed instances and replacing them. You have full control of deployments and automation of each component

Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.

AWS OpsWorks lets you model the different components of your application as layers in a stack, and maps your logical architecture to a physical architecture. You can see all resources associated with your application, and their status, in one place.;AWS OpsWorks provides an event-driven configuration system with rich deployment tools that allow you to efficiently manage your applications over their lifetime, including support for customizable deployments, rollback, partial deployments, patch management, automatic instance scaling, and auto healing.;AWS OpsWorks lets you define template configurations for your entire environment in a format that you can maintain and version just like your application source code.;AWS OpsWorks supports any software that has a scripted installation. Because OpsWorks uses the Chef framework, you can bring your own recipes or leverage hundreds of community-built configurations.
Lightweight, simple and accessible;Built for a multi-cloud world, public, private or hybrid;Highly modular, designed so that all of its components are easily swappable
Statistics
Stacks
196
Stacks
61.2K
Followers
222
Followers
52.8K
Votes
51
Votes
685
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 32
    Devops
  • 19
    Cloud management
Pros
  • 166
    Leading docker container management solution
  • 130
    Simple and powerful
  • 108
    Open source
  • 76
    Backed by google
  • 58
    The right abstractions
Cons
  • 16
    Steep learning curve
  • 15
    Poor workflow for development
  • 8
    Orchestrates only infrastructure
  • 4
    High resource requirements for on-prem clusters
  • 2
    Too heavy for simple systems
Integrations
No integrations available
Vagrant
Vagrant
Docker
Docker
Rackspace Cloud Servers
Rackspace Cloud Servers
Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure
Google Compute Engine
Google Compute Engine
Ansible
Ansible
Google Kubernetes Engine
Google Kubernetes Engine

What are some alternatives to AWS OpsWorks, Kubernetes?

Ansible

Ansible

Ansible is an IT automation tool. It can configure systems, deploy software, and orchestrate more advanced IT tasks such as continuous deployments or zero downtime rolling updates. Ansible’s goals are foremost those of simplicity and maximum ease of use.

Rancher

Rancher

Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.

Docker Compose

Docker Compose

With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.

Chef

Chef

Chef enables you to manage and scale cloud infrastructure with no downtime or interruptions. Freely move applications and configurations from one cloud to another. Chef is integrated with all major cloud providers including Amazon EC2, VMWare, IBM Smartcloud, Rackspace, OpenStack, Windows Azure, HP Cloud, Google Compute Engine, Joyent Cloud and others.

Terraform

Terraform

With Terraform, you describe your complete infrastructure as code, even as it spans multiple service providers. Your servers may come from AWS, your DNS may come from CloudFlare, and your database may come from Heroku. Terraform will build all these resources across all these providers in parallel.

Docker Swarm

Docker Swarm

Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.

Tutum

Tutum

Tutum lets developers easily manage and run lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers from any application. AWS-like control, Heroku-like ease. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale in Tutum.

Capistrano

Capistrano

Capistrano is a remote server automation tool. It supports the scripting and execution of arbitrary tasks, and includes a set of sane-default deployment workflows.

Puppet Labs

Puppet Labs

Puppet is an automated administrative engine for your Linux, Unix, and Windows systems and performs administrative tasks (such as adding users, installing packages, and updating server configurations) based on a centralized specification.

Salt

Salt

Salt is a new approach to infrastructure management. Easy enough to get running in minutes, scalable enough to manage tens of thousands of servers, and fast enough to communicate with them in seconds. Salt delivers a dynamic communication bus for infrastructures that can be used for orchestration, remote execution, configuration management and much more.

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