TCP #70: EKS Auto Mode vs Karpenter: The Complete Decision Framework
A comprehensive guide to making the right choice for your infrastructure
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In the last 6 months, I have completed an infrastructure audit across 20 production EKS clusters.
The results were sobering: 68% of teams were using the wrong node management strategy, resulting in $300K in wasted spend across organizations.
The problem isn't that EKS Auto Mode or Karpenter are bad technologies. The problem is that teams are making emotional decisions based on hype rather than systematic evaluation of their actual requirements.
In today’s newsletter issue, I provide the decision framework I've developed through years of EKS deployments at scale. By the end, you'll know exactly which approach fits your situation and how to avoid the costly mistakes I've seen repeated across dozens of organizations.
The False Binary: Why "Auto Mode vs Karpenter" Is the Wrong Question
Most discussions frame this as an either/or decision.
This binary thinking is precisely what leads to architectural mistakes that cost months of engineering time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in infrastructure spending.
The reality is more nuanced: