Key Differences

Core Philosophy

ECS/EKS Hybrid Nodes

Extends AWS control plane to on-premises and edge environments. Hybrid nodes connect back to AWS-managed EKS clusters or ECS services, providing unified management across cloud and on-premises. Primary goal: bring AWS orchestration everywhere while keeping control centralized in AWS regions.

Expanso

Built around 'Compute Over Data'-processing information where it already exists. When you're asking 'Why are we paying massive egress fees to move data from our edge locations to AWS just to process it?', Expanso provides the answer. Work with data in S3, on-premises databases, or edge devices without moving it to centralized clusters.

Vendor Lock-in & Cloud Independence

ECS/EKS Hybrid Nodes

Deep integration with AWS ecosystem (IAM, CloudWatch, VPC, ELB, ECR). While hybrid nodes run on your infrastructure, they require persistent connectivity to AWS control plane and incur AWS service charges. Migrating away from AWS means re-architecting your entire orchestration stack.

Expanso

Cloud-agnostic by design. Run the same jobs on AWS, Azure, GCP, on-premises servers, or edge devices. No vendor lock-in-your orchestration layer works across any infrastructure. When cloud costs spike or business requirements change, you're not trapped in a single vendor's ecosystem.

Data Transfer Costs & Egress Fees

ECS/EKS Hybrid Nodes

While nodes run locally, many AWS services and workflows assume data flows to/through AWS regions for processing, storage, or integration with managed services. Egress fees can reach $0.09/GB or more-moving petabytes from on-premises or edge to AWS for processing costs thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Expanso

Eliminates unnecessary data transfers. Process S3 data within the same region (or even within VPCs), analyze on-premises data without uploading it, run ML inference on edge devices locally. Save massive egress fees by moving computation (kilobytes of code) instead of data (petabytes of storage).

Network Connectivity Requirements

ECS/EKS Hybrid Nodes

Hybrid nodes require persistent, stable network connectivity to AWS control plane. Connection loss means nodes can't receive new tasks, report status, or integrate with AWS services. Unstable connections at edge locations, offshore platforms, or remote sites create operational challenges.

Expanso

Designed for intermittent and unreliable connectivity. Jobs can execute on edge devices during network outages, queue results locally, and sync when connectivity returns. Perfect for oil rigs, ships, remote manufacturing facilities, retail stores, or anywhere network reliability isn't guaranteed.

Data Sovereignty & Compliance

ECS/EKS Hybrid Nodes

Control plane resides in AWS regions. While data can stay on-premises, metadata, logs, and orchestration data flow to AWS. For organizations with strict data residency requirements (government, healthcare, finance), having operational metadata exit the country can violate compliance.

Expanso

Full control over where data and metadata reside. Process regulated data entirely within approved geographies. Healthcare data stays in HIPAA-compliant facilities, EU data stays in EU, government data stays on approved infrastructure. Compliance through architecture, not just configuration.

Collaboration, not Competition

ECS/EKS Hybrid Nodes and Expanso can work together strategically. Use ECS/EKS for your AWS-centric applications and services that benefit from tight integration with AWS managed services (RDS, ElastiCache, Lambda). Then use Expanso to run data-intensive jobs across your hybrid infrastructure-processing data in S3 buckets regionally, analyzing on-premises datasets without egress fees, or running edge computing workloads without requiring persistent AWS connectivity.

The question isn't ECS/EKS or Expanso-it's 'Which workloads benefit from AWS integration?' versus 'Which workloads are driven by data locality, cost optimization, and infrastructure independence?' Use the right tool for each job.

Feature	ECS/EKS Hybrid	Expanso
AWS Ecosystem Integration		Optional, not required
Multi-Cloud Native	AWS-only
Compute Over Data
Data Locality Priority	Cloud-centric model
No Vendor Lock-in
Disconnected Execution	Requires AWS connectivity
Eliminates Egress Costs
Data Sovereignty Control	Control plane in AWS

Expanso vs. Amazon ECS/EKS Hybrid Nodes: Cloud Extension vs. Compute Over Data

Key Differences

Core Philosophy

Vendor Lock-in & Cloud Independence

Data Transfer Costs & Egress Fees

Network Connectivity Requirements

Data Sovereignty & Compliance

At a Glance

Collaboration, not Competition

Ready to escape egress fees?