# Keel vs Kubernetes

Kubernetes is a general-purpose orchestration platform with a large ecosystem and broad portability. Keel targets a narrower use case: deploying common web application components to managed AWS services without operating a Kubernetes cluster.

## Same job, less work

| What you want | Kubernetes | Keel |
|---|---|---|
| Three copies of a web app | Deployment → ReplicaSet → Pods, requests, limits, three kinds of probe | `type: web`, `cpu`, `memory`, `health_check` |
| HTTPS on your own domain | Service + Ingress + an ingress controller + cert-manager + external-dns + issuers | `domain:` — load balancer, auto-renewing ACM certificate, DNS records, and HTTP→HTTPS redirect |
| Scale on CPU | metrics-server + HPA + Karpenter | `autoscaling: { min, max, target_cpu }` |
| A background worker | A second Deployment, no Service, plus a PodDisruptionBudget | `type: worker` |
| A nightly job | CronJob, `concurrencyPolicy`, `backoffLimit` | `type: scheduled` |
| A Postgres database | An operator to run, or wire up RDS yourself | `database: { engine: postgres }` |
| Migrate before traffic shifts | An init container or Job, plus a Helm hook | `release:` |
| Let the app read a bucket | OIDC provider, ServiceAccount annotation, trust policy, IAM role | `bindings:` |
| Secrets from AWS | External Secrets Operator, SecretStores, sync failures | `keel config set` |
| Logs and metrics | Prometheus, Grafana, Fluent Bit | `keel logs`, `keel ps`, built-in dashboard |
| Roll back a bad release | `helm rollback`, or an Argo sync to a past revision | `keel rollback` |
| Know what it costs | Kubecost, or a spreadsheet | `keel cost` |
| Keep it all running | Control plane, add-on, and node upgrades, several times a year | Nothing to upgrade |

## The whole config

```yaml
name: store
region: us-east-1

pipeline:
  source: github
  repo: acme/store

services:
  web:
    type: web
    port: 3000
    health_check: { path: /up }
    cpu: 512
    memory: 1024
    autoscaling: { min: 2, max: 10, target_cpu: 60 }
  worker:
    type: worker
    command: ["worker"]
    cpu: 256
    memory: 512

database:
  engine: postgres
  version: "16"
  instance: db.t4g.small

release:
  command: ["bundle", "exec", "rails", "db:migrate"]
```

`keel up` provisions the infrastructure and `keel deploy` releases the application. There is no Kubernetes control plane or add-on stack to operate.

## Control-plane cost

An EKS cluster carries an hourly control-plane charge even when no workloads are running. ECS has no separate cluster fee, though the Fargate tasks and other AWS resources still incur charges.

## When Kubernetes is the better fit

Choose Kubernetes when you need its portability, custom controllers, scheduling controls, or ecosystem. Choose Keel when the standard AWS application stack covers your needs and you want a smaller operational surface.

[Get started →](../guide/getting-started) · [Back to comparisons](./)