Kubernetes has become the de facto standard for container orchestration. But adopting K8s raises a strategic decision that impacts cost, performance and operations for years: running Kubernetes on your own bare metal servers or using a managed service in the public cloud. The answer is not trivial and depends on each organisation's workload profile, team, budget and regulatory requirements.
Managed services like EKS, AKS and GKE simplify day-to-day operations, but in return they impose growing costs, customisation limits and vendor lock-in. Bare metal offers total control and predictable costs, but demands operational capability to manage the underlying infrastructure. In this article we analyse both options in depth so you can make an informed decision.
What Is Kubernetes
Kubernetes (K8s) is an open-source container orchestration platform originally developed by Google and now maintained by the CNCF. Its primary function is to automate the deployment, scaling and lifecycle management of containerised applications.
A K8s cluster consists of a control plane (API server, etcd, scheduler, controller manager) that makes orchestration decisions, and worker nodes that run pods with the actual workloads. Kubernetes abstracts the underlying infrastructure, whether virtual machines in the cloud or physical servers in a data centre, and allows you to declare the desired state of your applications through YAML manifests.
The question is not whether to use Kubernetes, but where and how to run it. And that is where the choice between bare metal and managed cloud becomes critical.
Managed Kubernetes: EKS, AKS and GKE
The three major cloud providers offer managed Kubernetes services where the provider operates the control plane: Amazon EKS, Azure AKS and Google GKE. The user only manages the worker nodes (or even delegates them with serverless profiles like Fargate or Autopilot).
- check_circle Advantage: managed control plane, automatic upgrades, native integration with provider services (load balancers, IAM, logging, storage).
- check_circle Advantage: one-click node autoscaling, no hardware or physical network management required.
- warning Disadvantage: costs that scale rapidly (compute + networking + storage + control plane fee), vendor lock-in to proprietary APIs, and limited customisation of networking and storage.
- warning Disadvantage: data on third-party infrastructure outside your jurisdiction, with implications for data sovereignty and regulatory compliance (GDPR, ENS, NIS2).
Kubernetes on Bare Metal
Running Kubernetes directly on dedicated servers means installing and operating the control plane and workers on physical hardware. Distributions like kubeadm, k3s, RKE2 or Talos Linux simplify deployment, but operational responsibility falls on your team.
- check_circle Total control: you configure the kernel, the runtime (containerd/CRI-O), the CNI, the CSI, network policies and storage exactly as you need.
- check_circle Predictable costs: no variable bills for network traffic, IOPS or inter-zone data transfer. You pay for the hardware and that is it.
- check_circle Native performance: no virtualisation layer, direct access to CPU, memory, NVMe and NIC. Ideal for latency-sensitive workloads.
- warning Requires a team: you need engineers proficient in Linux, L2/L3 networking, distributed storage and the K8s lifecycle (upgrades, etcd backups, certificates).
Comparison Table: Bare Metal vs Managed Cloud
The following table compares both approaches across the seven criteria that matter most when making this decision:
| Criterion | Bare Metal | Managed Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Fixed and predictable CAPEX/OPEX; cheaper at scale | Variable OPEX; affordable at first, expensive at scale |
| Control | Total: kernel, CNI, CSI, runtime, policies | Limited to the provider's control plane |
| Networking | Calico, Cilium, MetalLB; full L2/L3/BGP | Provider VPC; limited or proprietary CNI |
| Storage | Ceph, Longhorn, local NVMe; flexible CSI | EBS/Persistent Disk; fast but expensive |
| Scaling | Manual or semi-automatic; provisioning in hours/days | Autoscaling in minutes with node pools |
| Operations | In-house team or external managed services | Control plane managed by the provider |
| Compliance | Full sovereignty; data in your jurisdiction | Dependent on provider regions and policies |
Networking on Bare Metal: Calico, Cilium and MetalLB
In managed cloud, networking is abstracted by the provider's VPC. On bare metal, you choose the CNI (Container Network Interface) and the external load balancing mechanism. This requires more initial work but delivers superior control and performance:
- hub Calico: a mature BGP-based CNI operating at layer 3. It supports native Kubernetes Network Policies as well as its own extended policies. Ideal for environments that need integration with existing BGP networks.
- hub Cilium: an eBPF-based CNI that operates in the kernel without iptables. It offers L7 observability, an integrated service mesh (Cilium Mesh), transparent WireGuard encryption and superior performance in high-throughput environments.
- dns MetalLB: a load balancer implementation for bare metal that provides external IPs to LoadBalancer-type services. It works in L2 (ARP) or BGP mode, replacing the function that cloud providers' native load balancers serve.
Key concept:
With Cilium + MetalLB on bare metal you can build a K8s networking stack that outperforms any managed cloud, without VPC limitations or inter-zone traffic costs.
Storage on Bare Metal: CSI, Ceph and Longhorn
Persistent storage is one of the most complex challenges of K8s on bare metal. In managed cloud, you simply request a PersistentVolumeClaim and the provider provisions an EBS or Persistent Disk volume. On bare metal, you need a storage backend that exposes volumes via CSI (Container Storage Interface):
- storage Ceph + Rook: the most robust combination. Rook deploys and manages a Ceph cluster inside Kubernetes, exposing block (RBD), file (CephFS) and object (RGW) storage via CSI. Triple replication, self-healing and horizontal scaling.
- storage Longhorn: a cloud-native distributed storage solution developed by SUSE/Rancher. Simpler than Ceph, ideal for small and medium clusters. Supports replication, snapshots and S3 backup.
- storage Local NVMe + hostPath/local-static-provisioner: for workloads that need maximum IOPS (databases, caches), you can use local NVMe storage without storage-level replication, delegating redundancy to the application itself (e.g. PostgreSQL or Elasticsearch replicas).
When to Choose Bare Metal
Bare metal is the best option when one or more of these conditions apply:
- arrow_right Stable, predictable workloads: if your CPU, memory and storage consumption is constant and known, bare metal will always be cheaper than paying for cloud instances by the hour.
- arrow_right Extreme latency requirements: high-frequency trading, gaming, real-time streaming. No virtualisation layer, with direct access to NIC and NVMe.
- arrow_right Data sovereignty: regulations such as GDPR, ENS or NIS2 that require data to remain within national territory and on controlled infrastructure.
- arrow_right High traffic volumes: when the cost of egress and inter-zone traffic in the cloud exceeds the cost of connectivity on a dedicated server.
When to Choose Managed Cloud
Managed cloud makes sense in specific scenarios where agility takes priority over unit cost:
- arrow_right Early-stage startups: you need deployment speed and have no infrastructure team. Paying more per hour is acceptable if it reduces time-to-market.
- arrow_right Highly variable workloads: seasonal spikes (Black Friday, campaigns) where you need to scale from 10 to 100 nodes in minutes and back to 10 afterwards.
- arrow_right Multi-region presence: if you need clusters on 5 continents simultaneously, managed cloud offers instant global presence.
- arrow_right No operations team: if you do not have and do not plan to hire platform engineers, outsourcing control plane management reduces operational risk.
Hybrid Approach: The Best of Both Worlds
Many mature organisations adopt a hybrid architecture: bare metal as the base layer for stable workloads (databases, caches, core services) and cloud as a burst layer to absorb demand spikes. Tools like Cluster API, Crossplane or Rancher allow you to manage K8s clusters on bare metal and in the cloud from a single control plane.
In this architecture, baseline traffic is served from dedicated servers with fixed costs and overflow is routed to cloud nodes that are provisioned and destroyed on demand. The result is an optimised cost model that combines the economics of bare metal with the elasticity of the cloud.
Practical advantage:
A well-designed hybrid approach can reduce costs by 40-60% compared to running everything in the cloud, while retaining the ability to scale in minutes for unpredictable demand spikes.
EasyDataHost for Kubernetes on Bare Metal
EasyDataHost provides the ideal infrastructure for running Kubernetes on bare metal: enterprise servers with latest-generation processors, enterprise NVMe, redundant connectivity and a Tier III+ data centre location in Madrid.
For organisations that need to run K8s but do not want to operate the underlying infrastructure, our managed services team handles deployment, maintenance, monitoring and upgrades of your clusters: from OS installation and CNI setup to etcd backups and certificate management.
- check_circle Dedicated NVMe servers: enterprise hardware with full bare metal access for your K8s workers.
- check_circle Redundant 25 Gbps network: high-capacity connectivity for inter-node traffic and Ceph storage.
- check_circle Integrated Ceph storage: distributed storage with triple replication for PersistentVolumes via CSI.
- check_circle Data in Spain: Tier III+ data centre in Madrid with guaranteed data sovereignty.
Conclusion
There is no universal answer to the bare metal vs cloud question for Kubernetes. The right decision depends on your workload profile, available team, budget and regulatory requirements. What matters is making the decision based on data, not on inertia.
- arrow_right Bare metal is the optimal choice for stable workloads, critical latency, data sovereignty and predictable costs at scale.
- arrow_right Managed cloud is the optimal choice for startups, variable workloads, multi-region presence and teams without operational capability.
- arrow_right The hybrid approach combines the economics of bare metal with the elasticity of the cloud to optimise cost and agility.
- arrow_right Networking (Calico/Cilium/MetalLB) and storage (Ceph/Longhorn) on bare metal deliver superior performance and control.
- arrow_right EasyDataHost provides enterprise servers, Ceph storage and managed services to run K8s on bare metal without worries.
If you are evaluating where to run your Kubernetes cluster, contact our team to design the architecture that best fits your performance, cost and compliance requirements.