Azure Container Instances vs Azure Kubernetes Service

Comparison

Category	Azure Container Instances	Azure Kubernetes Service
Definition	ACI is a serverless compute service that allows you to run containers without managing the underlying infrastructure	AKS provides a managed Kubernetes cluster
Use Case	Ideal for short-lived tasks or burst workloads	Suited for long-running applications and orchestrating containerized workloads
Billing Model	Billed per second, based on vCPU and memory usage	Billed for the VM nodes in the cluster (VM size, number of nodes)
Cost Factors	Compute: Pay only when containers are running Storage: No persistent storage costs Networking: Minimal networking costs	Compute: Ongoing cost for VM nodes Storage: Persistent storage costs (Azure Disks, Azure Files, etc.) Networking: Load balancer, egress traffic, etc.
Scalability	Scales automatically based on demand	Manual/Automated scaling of VM nodes
Management Overhead	Minimal management; serverless	Requires more management (upgrades, scaling, monitoring)
Advanced Features	Limited features (no orchestration, auto-scaling)	Rich Kubernetes features (auto-scaling, secrets management, RBAC)
Usage	ACI can be used together with plain Kubernetes or AKS	AKS is a individual free managed service
Cost example for a containerized web app	Costs depend on the duration of container execution	Costs include VM nodes, storage, and networking