Deploy to EKS, AKS, or GKE Without Writing a Single Line of YAML

Key points:

• The False Trade-off: Engineering teams historically had to choose between Heroku and Kubernetes.
• The Convergence: Modern platforms like Qovery break this cycle by offering a "Heroku-like" developer interface that sits on top of your own cloud account (AWS/GCP/Azure).
• Zero YAML, Full Control: Developers deploy via Git push without touching manifests, while platform engineers retain full access to the underlying EKS/AKS/GKE clusters for compliance and optimization.

For years, engineering teams have been stuck in a dilemma. You could choose Simplicity (Heroku), accepting vendor lock-in and skyrocketing costs. Or you could choose Control (Kubernetes), accepting months of configuration headaches and the "YAML tax" on your developers.

Startups picked simplicity to move fast. Enterprises picked control to stay compliant. Both compromises are now obsolete.

You no longer need to sacrifice developer experience to run on your own infrastructure. Modern unified platforms deliver the "push-to-deploy" simplicity of a PaaS while running directly on managed Kubernetes services in your own cloud account.

In this guide, we explore how to break the trade-off: giving developers a zero-configuration interface while giving platform engineers the full power of AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.

The Simplicity of the Past: The Heroku Benchmark

Heroku set the standard for developer experience in cloud deployment. The workflow is elegant: connect a Git repository, push code, and watch the application appear online. No servers to configure, no infrastructure to provision, no deployment scripts to maintain.

Why Developers Loved It

The appeal was immediate productivity, as developers could go from code to an application running in production within minutes. The platform handled building containers, provisioning resources, managing SSL certificates, and scaling based on demand.

This abstraction let developers focus entirely on application code. Infrastructure concerns disappeared behind a simple interface. New team members deployed their first changes on day one rather than spending weeks learning deployment procedures.

The platform detected application frameworks automatically and configured appropriate runtime environments. Developers specified what they wanted to run, not how to run it, and the environment was built for them automatically.

The Limitations

As applications grew, Heroku's constraints became true limitations for operating teams. Pricing scaled poorly for compute-intensive workloads. A single dyno running continuously costs more than equivalent compute on major cloud providers. Database costs at scale exceeded what teams would pay for self-managed alternatives by significant margins.

Vendor lock-in created strategic risk. Applications built on Heroku depended on Heroku-specific features and infrastructure patterns. Migration required significant rearchitecture rather than a simple port, and engineering organizations could feel trapped as costs increased.

Lack of customization also proved to be a limitation for growing organizations. Specific networking configurations, compliance requirements, or integration possibilities can be missing from the platform. Teams needing custom runtime environments, specific security controls, or particular geographic deployments found themselves unable to meet their requirements.

The Heroku model proved that developers wanted simplicity. But it also demonstrated that simplicity without control creates its own problems.

The Power of the Present: The Kubernetes Reality

Managed Kubernetes services from major cloud providers offer what Heroku couldn't: power, flexibility, and cost efficiency at scale.

The Benefits of EKS, GKE, and AKS

Amazon EKS, Google GKE, and Azure AKS provide enterprise-grade container orchestration without the burden of managing Kubernetes control planes. Teams get automatic upgrades, integrated security, and native cloud provider integrations.

Scalability becomes more straightforward, as Kubernetes can be set up to handle horizontal scaling, load balancing, and resource scheduling automatically. Applications scale from handling hundreds of requests to millions without architectural changes.

Cost efficiency also improves at scale. Reserved instances, spot pricing, and efficient cluster autoscaling reduce compute costs compared to PaaS alternatives. Teams pay for actual resource consumption rather than arbitrary pricing tiers.

Customization has no practical limits, as any container can run on Kubernetes, or any networking configuration is possible. Compliance requirements around data residency, encryption, and access control can be implemented precisely as needed.

Using Kubernetes prevents standard vendor lock-in constraints. It runs identically across cloud providers, and applications deploy to any other platform without code changes. The container and orchestration standards ensure portability.

The Complexity Barrier

These benefits come with significant complexity costs. Production-ready Kubernetes requires expertise that most development teams lack and shouldn't need to acquire.

YAML configuration files define every aspect of Kubernetes deployments. A simple web application requires Deployment manifests, Service definitions, Ingress configurations, ConfigMaps for environment variables, and Secrets for credentials. Each file demands precise syntax and understanding of Kubernetes concepts.

These manifests represent just the deployment definition. Production applications require additional YAML for services, horizontal pod autoscalers, network policies, and more. All these configurations need to be created and managed for each microservice and environment they are deployed in.

CI/CD pipelines add another layer of complexity for operators. Building containers, pushing to registries, updating manifests, and triggering deployments requires tooling that teams must configure and maintain. Jenkins, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, and similar tools each demand specific expertise.

Infrastructure as Code compounds complexity further. Terraform or Pulumi configurations provision the Kubernetes clusters themselves, along with networking, databases, and supporting services. This creates another type of resource to maintain to ensure a good overview of the provisioned infrastructure.

This results in developers needing to learn infrastructure instead of working on their applications. Engineering organizations also need to build a platform team to maintain the infrastructure. The power of Kubernetes comes at the cost of the simplicity that made Heroku productive.

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Qovery: The Convergence Layer

Qovery bridges this gap by providing a PaaS-like experience on top of managed Kubernetes services. Developers get the workflow similar to the one provided by Heroku. Platform engineers get the control they need from Kubernetes, while no one has to write YAML to get their applications deployed.

How It Works

Qovery connects directly to your cloud account and provisions managed Kubernetes clusters on EKS, AKS, or GKE. The platform then provides a simplified interface for deploying applications to those clusters.

Developers interact with Qovery through Git integration, CLI, or web interface. Pushing code triggers automatic builds and deployments. Creating environments happens through UI selections rather than infrastructure provisioning.

Behind the scenes, Qovery generates all necessary Kubernetes manifests, configures CI/CD pipelines, and manages infrastructure as code. The platform handles the complexity that would otherwise require dedicated platform engineering effort.

Zero YAML Required

The core promise is to let engineers deploy applications to production Kubernetes without writing configuration files.

Qovery builds and generates appropriate container configurations automatically. Environment variables are configured through the web interface, which are then converted to ConfigMaps and Secrets. Resource allocations are set through simple controls rather than YAML resource blocks.

Databases, caches, and message queues provision through the same interface. Select PostgreSQL, specify size, and Qovery handles the underlying infrastructure, without any Terraform needed.

This abstraction doesn't prevent customization when operating teams require them. Teams requiring specific configurations can override defaults. But the common case requires no configuration at all.

The Core Value Proposition: Abstraction and Control

Qovery delivers value to both developers seeking simplicity and platform engineers requiring control.

Developer Workflow

The developer experience mirrors what made Heroku a great choice for productivity. Connect a repository, select a branch, and deploy. The platform handles building, testing, and releasing without manual intervention.

Git push triggers deployment automatically, keeping developers in their normal workflow. Qovery detects updates and rolls out new versions. No separate deployment step interrupts the development flow.

Ephemeral environments accelerate testing and review, as each pull request receives an isolated, full-stack environment automatically. Reviewers test actual running applications rather than reviewing code in isolation. Environments clean up automatically when pull requests close, keeping resource usage lean.

Platform Engineer Control

Unlike traditional PaaS platforms, Qovery runs entirely within your cloud account. EKS clusters provision in your AWS account. GKE clusters run in your GCP project. AKS clusters deploy to your Azure subscription.

Engineering organizations preserve full control over the deployed infrastructure, as operators can access underlying Kubernetes clusters directly. Custom networking, security policies, and compliance controls are implemented through standard cloud provider tools. Data stays within organizational boundaries, as no application traffic routes through third-party infrastructure.

Full observability is provided out of the box with this solution. Logs and metrics are visible within the web interface and can be used with third-party observability tools natively.

The Best of Both Worlds

This combination addresses the historic trade-off directly. Developers get the simplicity they need to ship quickly, while platform engineers get the control they need. The organization gets the cost efficiency and flexibility of Kubernetes without the complexity tax.

Conclusion

The choice between deployment simplicity and infrastructure control was never a real requirement. It was a limitation of available tooling that forced organizations to make compromises.

Qovery demonstrates that modern platforms can deliver both. The developer experience rivals Heroku at its best: Git push deployment, instant environments, and zero configuration for common cases. The infrastructure foundation provides everything Kubernetes offers: scalability, customization, cost efficiency, and portability.

Qovery provisions and manages infrastructure in your account, generating the YAML, Terraform, and CI/CD configurations that would otherwise require platform engineering effort. Developers never see this complexity, and operating engineers retain full access when required.

Stop Choosing Between Simplicity and Control

Deploy to EKS, AKS, or GKE without writing YAML, without sacrificing control, or vendor lock-in. Try Qovery for free today.

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