The hidden costs of running Kubernetes yourself (and why teams switch to Kubernetes as a service)

Short summary

Self-managed Kubernetes requires ongoing operational overhead—upgrades, certificate rotation, etcd backups, incident debugging—that typically costs Indian startups 15-20 hours per month and diverts senior engineers from product work. Managed Kubernetes providers handle control plane maintenance, maintain 99.9% uptime SLAs, and simplify compliance, making them cheaper once you account for full operational costs. Self-management makes sense only for teams with dedicated platform engineering staff, strict compliance requirements, or bare-metal performance needs.

• •Self-managed clusters require 15-20 hours/month of maintenance plus unplanned incident response
• •Full cost includes engineer salary, opportunity cost, and operational overhead (upgrades, cert rotation, etcd backups)
• •Managed Kubernetes cost-effective for most teams except those with dedicated platform teams or strict compliance demands

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.