For a typical 100-node cluster in 2026, GKE Standard is the cheapest managed Kubernetes on total cost, with EKS close behind and AKS surprisingly competitive on Windows-heavy workloads. Here is the honest 2026 side-by-side.
EKS Auto Mode adds a 12% management fee to EC2 hours, but replaces the platform-team labor of running Karpenter, EBS CSI, and load balancer controllers yourself. Break-even math from real production fleets, plus hidden costs and a safe incremental migration path.
Step-by-step Kubecost 2.x install on EKS, AKS, and GKE: Helm chart, cloud billing reconciliation, namespace allocation, network egress, alerts, multi-cluster federation, and Kubecost vs OpenCost.