EKS vs AKS vs GKE in 2027: Kubernetes version support calendars compared

Summary. All three managed Kubernetes services sell extra time on an old minor version at the same list price: $0.60 per cluster-hour, six times the usual $0.10 control plane fee. The differences sit in the defaults. Amazon EKS gives each version 14 months of standard support plus 12 months of extended support, 26 months in total, and puts every cluster in the paid extension unless you opt out. Azure AKS gives 12 months of community support from general availability (GA); a second year of long-term support (LTS) needs the Premium tier, is never switched on for you and bills $0.60 for as long as the cluster stays on Premium. Google GKE gives about 14 months of standard support from Regular channel availability and up to 24 months on the Extended channel, which costs nothing extra until extended support starts. Two 2027 changes raise the stakes: from 1 June 2027 AKS upgrades clusters left on unsupported versions, and on 14 June 2027 GKE removes the deprecated No channel option. For Kubernetes 1.35, standard support ends on 27 March 2027 on EKS, 31 March on AKS and 11 April on GKE. For 1.36 and 1.37, AKS ends first.

About this article. For platform, DevOps and FinOps leads running Kubernetes on more than one cloud. On 11 November 2026 we checked every date, price and policy against AWS, Microsoft and Google documentation and pricing pages, the Azure Retail Prices API and Kubernetes release pages. Providers revise these calendars monthly, so re-check before you fix a change window. Prices are US dollar list prices and can change; this is not financial advice, and no vendor paid for inclusion. Researched with AI assistance and reviewed by our editorial team.

This comparison covers policy: how long each provider supports a version, what extra time costs and who decides when you upgrade. Upstream, the Kubernetes project ends support for 1.35 on 28 February 2027. For upstream dates and breaking changes, see our Kubernetes 1.35 end-of-life upgrade calendar.

What changes in 2027

AKS starts upgrading unsupported clusters on 1 June 2027. From that date, Microsoft upgrades any AKS cluster still on an unsupported version once its 60-day platform support grace period has ended. These platform-initiated upgrades ignore your maintenance window, skip the deprecated-API check and honour Pod Disruption Budgets only on a best-effort basis, overriding one if a node drain times out or fails. There is no opt-out. For the first rollout, Microsoft expects community-support clusters on 1.36 or later and LTS clusters on 1.33 LTS or later; versions 1.32 to 1.35 share the June 2027 rollout month.

GKE removes No channel on 14 June 2027. Leaving a GKE Standard cluster outside a release channel is already deprecated and limited to existing customers. After the removal date, GKE enrols remaining clusters in the Stable channel.

EKS still bills by default. Extended support has cost $0.60 per cluster-hour since the April 2024 billing cycle, and the EXTENDED upgrade policy is the default for new and existing clusters. EKS also lets you roll an in-place upgrade back one minor version within 7 days.

The three lifecycle models side by side

Sources: each provider's lifecycle and pricing pages.

Maximum life starts from different points: EKS release, AKS GA and GKE Regular availability. For 1.35, the paid extensions end on 27 March 2028 (EKS), 31 March 2028 (AKS LTS) and 11 February 2028 (GKE), at most seven weeks apart.

AKS charges Premium for the whole time you are on it. You can enable LTS at any point, including during community support, and the Premium rate applies from then on, so enrolling at creation adds about 70 percent to a version's control plane cost.

The fully managed modes cannot buy extra time. Google lists Autopilot among the cluster types that cannot enrol in the Extended channel, and Microsoft's pricing page limits LTS to AKS Standard clusters, not AKS Automatic. AWS lists no such exclusion for EKS Auto Mode.

Amazon EKS: 26 months, billed unless you opt out

EKS has no release channels: you schedule each minor upgrade, one version at a time, and AWS acts only at the boundaries. Under the default EXTENDED policy a cluster can stay up to 12 months past standard support at $0.60 an hour; under STANDARD, AWS upgrades it to the next version when standard support ends. Extended billing starts at the beginning of the end-of-standard-support day, in UTC. When extended support ends, AWS upgrades the control plane in a gradual rollout, at no fixed time and without further notice, and leaves managed and self-managed nodes on the old version.

Two EKS rules have no direct equivalent elsewhere. A cluster already in extended support cannot switch back to STANDARD, so the only way out is an upgrade. And an in-place upgrade can be rolled back one minor version within 7 days, unless AWS made it at the end of extended support; rolling back into an extended-support version restarts extended billing.

For an EKS-only plan for the 27 March 2027 deadline, see our EKS 1.35 end of standard support guide.

Azure AKS: N-2, platform support, then LTS on Premium

AKS supports the latest GA minor version and the two before it (N-2). When a new minor ships, the oldest moves 30 days later into platform support, Microsoft's name for N-3. Platform support covers Azure platform issues only: no Kubernetes bug fixes or security patches, and no new clusters on that version. The 60-day grace period starts the day after end of life. After it, from 1 June 2027, AKS upgrades the whole cluster, one minor version at a time, to the lowest supported version in its support tier.

LTS adds a second year, about 24 months from GA, with security fixes backported. The conditions:

• Premium tier plus the AKSLongTermSupport support plan, set together.

• Only the two most recent patch versions of each LTS minor are supported, so Microsoft pairs LTS with the patch auto-upgrade channel.

• An LTS cluster can skip minors to a higher LTS version if skew and validation checks pass; a supported non-LTS cluster cannot.

• You can enable LTS after community support ends, but cannot then disable it for that version.

• After LTS end of life plus 60 days, AKS moves the cluster to the next LTS version, never back to community support.

• Add-ons keep their own lifecycles. Microsoft-managed Calico is not supported on LTS, and managed Open Service Mesh support ends on 30 September 2027 whatever LTS covers.

• Ubuntu 22.04 node pools must move to Ubuntu 24.04 before you enable LTS on Kubernetes 1.33 or later.

For community-support clusters on AKS Standard, the auto-upgrade channel decides whether you stay inside the window.

Microsoft advises pairing the stable channel with a maintenance window of at least four hours to stay supported and out of the platform-initiated path. Channels act only while the cluster is supported; after that, the platform-initiated upgrade takes over.

Google GKE: release channels and the Extended channel

GKE upgrades every cluster automatically; the question is how fast. Autopilot clusters must use a release channel.

The controls are finer than on the other two platforms:

• Maintenance exclusions. The No upgrades scope holds a cluster for up to 90 days; No minor upgrades and No minor or node upgrades can hold it until the version's end of support.

• Deprecated-API protection. During standard support, GKE does not auto-upgrade a cluster using deprecated APIs; at the end of support it upgrades regardless.

• A 90-day patch rule. The control plane must move to a new patch or minor version at least every 90 days; if it has not, GKE patches it whatever policies you set.

• Extended channel timing. On Extended, GKE applies only patches until about two months before extended support ends, then starts minor upgrades (except on clusters using deprecated APIs) and upgrades every remaining cluster at the end date.

Check the Extended channel's exclusions before planning on it: the multi-cluster features include Managed Cloud Service Mesh, Service Directory, Config Sync, Policy Controller and multi-cluster Gateway, Ingress and Services. When a Container-Optimized OS milestone reaches its own end of support during extended support, GKE pauses patch node auto-upgrades and sends a cluster notification. Extended support also does not extend cluster credential expiry.

Release cadence: how fast each platform ships a new minor

Upstream Kubernetes ships a minor version roughly every four months, and the platforms follow at different speeds.

GKE Rapid gets a new minor about a week after upstream but sits outside the GKE SLA. For a production-grade release, EKS has recently been quickest at five to six weeks, then GKE Regular at seven to eight; AKS GA landed one to about three months after upstream (Microsoft publishes months, not days). For 1.38, Microsoft lists a preview in November 2026, ahead of the upstream date, and GA in February 2027.

Kubernetes 1.35 on all three platforms

AKS month-only dates mean the month's last day.

For 1.36 and 1.37 the order flips. AKS community support ends on 30 June 2027 and 31 October 2027, ahead of EKS (2 August and 1 December 2027) and GKE (9 August and 22 December 2027).

What staying on an old version costs

Take one production cluster kept on one minor version for as long as each platform allows, at 730 hours a month and list prices: $0.10 an hour is $73 a month and $0.60 is $438.

The monthly premium for extra time is identical everywhere: $438 against $73, or $365 more per cluster, about ₹34,284 at ₹93.93 per US dollar (ECB reference rate, 10 November 2026). The gap comes from timing. On AKS, the cheapest path is the Standard tier through community support and Premium from shortly before end of life; enrolling at creation costs $10,512 against $6,132, about 71 percent more. LTS can be enabled after community support ends, but once the grace period lapses AKS upgrades the cluster off that version. On GKE, enrolling in Extended early costs nothing. On EKS, the extension is already on, so the saving comes from upgrading on time or setting STANDARD.

Scaled to a fleet: ten clusters that each spend six months in a paid extension add 10 × $365 × 6 = $21,900 on any platform. On AKS, enrolling those ten in Premium at creation adds another 10 × $365 × 12 = $43,800 for the community-support year.

EKS and GKE each publish one per-cluster rate. For AKS, Microsoft's retail price list for Central India shows $0.10 an hour for the Standard tier uptime SLA and $0.60 for long-term support. The same list carries a $0.05-an-hour meter labelled FreeTierInfrastructureCost, effective 1 October 2026, while Microsoft's pricing and tier pages still describe Free tier cluster management as free, so check invoices for Free tier clusters.

Which lifecycle model fits your team

Version policy is rarely a reason to switch providers: all three converge on similar windows and the same price. EU-based teams weighing a move should read our explainer on EU Data Act cloud switching charges.

Notes for India and multi-region fleets

The 1.35 dates straddle the Indian financial year end, so teams that freeze changes at year-end close should finish 1.35 upgrades on all three platforms by early March 2027. Microsoft's Central India meters match the rates above. Node operating systems keep their own calendars: AKS stops patching Ubuntu 22.04 node pools on 30 June 2027 and removes the images on 30 April 2028. Our Ubuntu 22.04 end of standard support guide covers that side.

Checklist for a multi-cloud Kubernetes fleet

1. Inventory by provider: version, EKS upgrade policy, AKS tier, support plan and channel, GKE release channel.

1. Write the earliest date per version into one change calendar: 27 March 2027 for 1.35, 30 June 2027 for 1.36, 31 October 2027 for 1.37.

1. On EKS, set STANDARD on clusters that can take an AWS-timed upgrade, and give every EXTENDED cluster an owner and an exit date.

1. On AKS, set the stable channel and a maintenance window on community clusters before 1 June 2027; decide LTS per cluster, checking Calico and Ubuntu 22.04 node pools first.

1. On GKE, move every No channel cluster to a channel of your choice before 14 June 2027, and use No minor upgrades exclusions rather than staying unenrolled.

1. Budget the extension: $365 per cluster per month above the standard fee on any provider, and nothing to buy for Autopilot or AKS Automatic.

How eCorpIT can help

eCorpIT is a Gurugram-based technology organisation, founded in 2021, assessed at CMMI Level 5 and MSME certified, with senior-led engineering teams working across AWS, Microsoft and Google platforms. Our cloud computing services team inventories multi-cloud Kubernetes fleets, sets per-cluster support policies and channels, and plans staged upgrades on EKS, AKS and GKE. Talk to us at /contact-us/.

Last updated: 11 November 2026.

References

1. Amazon EKS pricing — Amazon Web Services

1. Pricing, Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) — Microsoft Azure

1. Google Kubernetes Engine pricing — Google Cloud

1. Understand the Kubernetes version lifecycle on EKS — Amazon Web Services

1. Long-term support for Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) versions — Microsoft Learn

1. GKE versioning and support — Google Cloud

1. Platform-initiated upgrades in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) — Microsoft Learn

1. About release channels — Google Cloud

1. Releases — Kubernetes

1. Supported Kubernetes versions in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) — Microsoft Learn

1. Amazon EKS extended support for Kubernetes versions pricing — AWS Containers Blog

1. View current cluster upgrade policy — Amazon Web Services

1. Roll back a cluster to a previous Kubernetes version — Amazon Web Services

1. GKE release schedule, updated 10 November 2026 — Google Cloud

1. Ubuntu 22.04 retires on June 30, 2027, removal on April 30, 2028 (issue 5701) — Azure/AKS on GitHub

1. Automatically upgrade an Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) cluster — Microsoft Learn

1. Kubernetes v1.35 release information — Kubernetes SIG Release

1. Kubernetes v1.36 release information — Kubernetes SIG Release

1. Kubernetes v1.37 release information — Kubernetes SIG Release

1. Kubernetes v1.38 release information — Kubernetes SIG Release

1. Azure Retail Prices API, Azure Kubernetes Service in Central India — Microsoft

1. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) Free, Standard and Premium pricing tiers — Microsoft Learn