Stakater Cloud
vs AKS
AKS gives you managed Kubernetes on Microsoft Azure — but OpenShift, GitOps, CI/CD, secrets management, multi-tenancy and observability are still entirely up to you. Stakater Cloud includes all of that, hosted in the EU, managed by OpenShift experts.
What is Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)?
AKS is Microsoft's managed Kubernetes offering. It handles cluster provisioning and patching on Azure, but the entire platform layer — developer tooling, GitOps, observability, security — is left for your team to build and operate.
What is Stakater Cloud?
Stakater Cloud is a fully managed OpenShift platform hosted in the Netherlands. We start at the PaaS layer — your cluster arrives pre-configured, pre-integrated, and with optional full developer platform (SAAP) on top. EU data residency, GDPR/DORA/NIS2 compliant, managed by Red Hat Premier Partner engineers.
How we compare
The real alternative isn't switching cloud providers — it's spending 12–18 months building this yourself with an internal platform team.
| Feature | Stakater Cloud | AKS | DIY on Hyperscaler |
|---|---|---|---|
| Managed OpenShift cluster | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| EU data residency | ✓ | Partial | Partial |
| GitOps pre-configured (ArgoCD) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| CI/CD pre-configured (Tekton) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Secrets management (Vault) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Multi-tenancy (MTO) | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Full monitoring + logging | ✓ | Basic | ✗ |
| No hyperscaler lock-in | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Predictable EU pricing | ✓ | Partial | ✗ |
| Time to first workload | < 15 min | Days–weeks | Months |
Ready to move away from AKS?
Book a call and let's talk about your workloads. We'll show you how Stakater Cloud compares to AKS for your specific situation.