Save up to 60% on AWS costs with EKS and Karpenter
Understanding AWS Karpenter
AWS Karpenter is an open-source, flexible, high-performance Kubernetes cluster autoscaler. It was developed by AWS to address some of the inherent limitations of the default Kubernetes autoscaler, particularly around efficient resource allocation and cost optimization. Karpenter dynamically adjusts the volume and type of compute resources to meet application demands, which significantly reduces costs and improves application performance. Discover more about Karpenter on its official page.
The Imperative of Cost Optimization
The majority of costs on AWS stem from the compute layer, primarily EC2 instances. Traditionally, organizations might allocate one EC2 instance per application, leading to underutilization and inflated costs. Kubernetes, and by extension AWS EKS, offers a more efficient model by allowing multiple applications to share the same EC2 instance (or Kubernetes node), thus mutualizing resources.
However, the default Kubernetes autoscaler falls short in two critical aspects:
- Load Balancing: It struggles to distribute workloads efficiently across instances.
- Node Flexibility: It cannot dynamically adjust the types of nodes in use based on current workloads, leading to non-optimized resource utilization and higher costs.
Enter Karpenter, AWS's answer to these challenges. Karpenter excels where the default autoscaler does not, offering dynamic and intelligent scaling that perfectly aligns resource allocation with application needs.
For a deeper dive into the advantages of Karpenter over the default Kubernetes autoscaler, our comparative analysis offers comprehensive insights.
Karpenter in Beta at Qovery
We're excited to announce that this revolutionary feature is now available in Beta for all our users at Qovery. Check out my short demo video 👇
By integrating Karpenter, we're enabling you to dramatically reduce your AWS costs, optimize resource usage, and enhance your applications' performance without the headache of manual scaling. Interested in being part of this Beta phase?
Join us in the evaluation process and experience the difference firsthand.
Qovery: Your Partner in Cloud Optimization
At Qovery, our mission is to provide you with an optimized infrastructure that embodies our philosophy: pay only for what you use, with zero wasted resources. In this challenging macroeconomic environment, optimizing cloud costs is not just a preference — it's a necessity. We're committed to helping you achieve this with solutions like AWS EKS and Karpenter that are designed to significantly lower your AWS bill while maintaining high performance and reliability.
By leveraging the power of Kubernetes with the intelligence of Karpenter, we're proud to offer you the tools to make your cloud infrastructure as efficient and cost-effective as possible. Dive into the future of cloud computing with Qovery's kubernetes management platform, and let's build a more sustainable, cost-efficient cloud together.
Resources:
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
Suggested articles
Kubernetes success is determined by Day 2 execution, not Day 1 deployment. While migration is a bounded project, maintenance is an infinite loop that often consumes 40% of senior engineering capacity. To protect margins and velocity, enterprises must transition from manual toil to agentic automation that handles scaling, security, and cost.
Day-0 is planning, Day-1 is deployment, and Day-2 is the infinite lifecycle of maintenance. While Day-0/1 are foundational, Day-2 is where enterprise operational debt accumulates. At fleet scale (1,000+ clusters), managing these differences manually is impossible, requiring agentic automation to maintain stability and eliminate toil.
Stop overpaying for Kubernetes observability. Learn how in-cluster monitoring and AI-driven troubleshooting with Qovery Observe can eliminate APM ingestion fees, reduce SRE bottlenecks, and make your cloud costs predictable.
Stop fighting cluster sprawl. Learn why traditional scripting and GitOps fail at scale, and discover how to achieve fleet-wide consistency without the complexity of Kubernetes Federation.
Looking to automate your Kubernetes environment in 2026? Discover the top automation tools, their weaknesses, and why scaling your infrastructure requires a unified management platform.
As the AI race shifts from hardware acquisition to GPU utilization, success is now an orchestration problem. Learn how to bridge the 84% capacity gap, eliminate "ghost" expenses, and leverage AI infrastructure copilots to maximize ROI in 2026.
.webp)