AZIN vs Porter: GKE Autopilot vs EKS Costs

AZIN and Porter both deploy to your own cloud account. Both are BYOC-first. The difference is what they run underneath — and how much it costs. Porter provisions Kubernetes clusters (EKS, GKE, AKS) in your cloud, with significant base infrastructure costs on AWS. AZIN uses GKE Autopilot on GCP, where you pay only for the pods you run. Same abstraction level, fundamentally different cost model.

#Quick comparison

Data verified as of February 2026. Porter raised a $20M Series A in January 2026, led by FirstMark.

#The Kubernetes question

AZIN uses GKE Autopilot (first cluster free, $0 overhead) while Porter provisions full Kubernetes clusters with a ~$225/mo minimum on AWS (as of February 2026). This is the core differentiator — pricing floor, operational overhead, and scaling model all follow from this architectural choice.

Porter provisions and manages a full Kubernetes cluster in your cloud account. On AWS, that means an EKS cluster with managed node groups, load balancers, and K8s-native networking. Porter abstracts the K8s complexity through its dashboard — you don't write YAML manifests or run kubectl — but Kubernetes is still running underneath. Your team's infrastructure includes the Kubernetes cluster resources.

AZIN deploys to GKE Autopilot on GCP — Kubernetes under the hood, but managed entirely by Google. You pay only for the CPU and memory your pods actually consume. No node groups to size, no cluster overhead to absorb. AWS and Azure BYOC are on the roadmap.

Why does this matter in practice?

• Cost floor: An EKS cluster on AWS costs ~$225/mo in underlying infrastructure before you deploy a single container. That's the cost of running a dedicated Kubernetes cluster — $73/mo for the EKS control plane plus EC2 nodes, NAT gateways, and load balancers. GKE Autopilot eliminates this: the first cluster is free, and you pay only for the pods you run.
• Upgrade cycles: Kubernetes releases new versions every 4 months. Each version deprecates APIs and changes behavior. Porter manages these upgrades, but your workloads still need testing against each new K8s version.
• Debugging surface area: When something breaks in a K8s-based deployment, the issue could be in the pod, the service, the ingress, the node group, or a dozen other K8s primitives. Cloud-native services have a smaller debugging surface.

#Pricing comparison

Both platforms charge platform fees on top of your cloud provider bill. The structures differ significantly.

Porter pricing (as of February 2026)

The critical number: Porter BYOC on AWS carries a ~$225/mo minimum underlying AWS cost for the required EKS cluster infrastructure. That's before any Porter platform fees and before you deploy any workloads. For a small team running a single web app with Postgres, the total cost on Porter BYOC starts around $300/mo.

Porter's startup program offsets platform fees — 25 vCPU and 50 GB RAM free for 6 months — but the underlying AWS bill for the EKS cluster still applies.

AZIN pricing

AZIN charges a platform fee for deployment management. Infrastructure is billed directly by your cloud provider at standard GCP rates. On GKE Autopilot, the first cluster is free and you pay only for the CPU and memory your pods consume. On lttle.cloud (in early access), services scale to zero when idle, so you pay nothing during quiet hours.

What a typical startup workload costs

For a web app with 2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, managed Postgres, running 24/7:

Porter and GCP pricing based on published rates as of February 2026. AZIN costs vary by usage — see azin.run/pricing for current rates.

Porter Cloud is competitive for small workloads — no EKS overhead, metered billing. The cost divergence hits when teams move to BYOC, where the K8s infrastructure floor kicks in.

#The eject model — Porter's genuine strength

Porter Cloud deserves credit for one of the cleanest onboarding-to-BYOC paths in the market. The model works like this:

Start on Porter Cloud (managed infrastructure, $20/vCPU + $10/GB). Build and validate your application without touching cloud accounts. When you're ready — for compliance, cost, or strategic reasons — eject to your own AWS, GCP, or Azure. Porter migrates your workloads to a Kubernetes cluster in your cloud account.

This is a genuinely well-designed transition path. It removes the cold-start problem of BYOC platforms: you don't need a cloud account configured on day one.

AZIN's equivalent is lttle.cloud (in early access). Start on AZIN's own infrastructure with scale-to-zero microVMs. When you need your own cloud, connect your GCP account and migrate — your workloads land on GKE Autopilot with the same pod-level billing model. AWS and Azure BYOC are on the roadmap.

#Compliance automation

Porter offers one-click SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance on AWS — preconfigured network policies, encryption settings, and audit logging that satisfy compliance frameworks. As of February 2026, this automation is AWS-only; GCP and Azure deployments don't get the same one-click compliance tooling.

AZIN's approach to compliance is architectural: your data stays in your GCP account, in your VPC, in your chosen region. You inherit Google Cloud's compliance certifications (SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and more) by default. No separate compliance layer needed — your infrastructure is your compliance boundary.

Both approaches work. Porter's is more turnkey on AWS. AZIN's inherits GCP's compliance posture by default, with AWS and Azure BYOC coming on the roadmap.

#When to choose Porter

Porter is the right pick when Kubernetes is a feature, not overhead.

• GPU and AI inference workloads — Porter's GPU autoscaling with time-slicing on GCP is purpose-built for ML teams. If you're running inference at scale, Porter's K8s-native GPU scheduling is mature.
• Teams that want K8s power without K8s operations — if your engineering team understands Kubernetes and wants its scaling model but doesn't want to manage clusters, Porter delivers that.
• Porter Cloud as a starting point — the eject model is clean. Start managed, move to BYOC when ready. No re-platforming.
• AWS compliance automation — one-click SOC 2 and HIPAA on AWS is a real time-saver for regulated startups.
• Existing K8s expertise — if your team already knows Kubernetes, Porter's abstractions make sense because the mental model aligns.

#When to choose AZIN

AZIN is the right pick when you want BYOC on GCP without fixed cluster infrastructure costs.

• Cost-sensitive BYOC on GCP — no fixed cluster floor. GKE Autopilot's free cluster tier means you pay only for pods you run, not idle node capacity.
• GCP-first infrastructure — your workloads land on GKE Autopilot with Cloud SQL, Memorystore, and GCS — all managed by Google, billed directly to your account.
• Leaner Kubernetes experience — GKE Autopilot handles node provisioning, scaling, and upgrades. You get the K8s abstraction without the cluster management overhead that Porter still leaves to you.
• Cheap on-ramp with lttle.cloud — scale-to-zero microVMs targeting sub-10ms cold starts (in early access). Validate your idea before committing to cloud infrastructure.
• GitLab or Bitbucket workflows — Porter is GitHub-only as of February 2026. AZIN supports GitHub today, with GitLab coming soon and Bitbucket planned.
• EU data residency — AZIN is EU-native (Netherlands, Romania). Deploy to any GCP EU region in your account. GDPR compliance is architectural, not bolted on.
• Multi-cloud on the roadmap — AWS and Azure BYOC are coming. Start on GCP today, expand later without re-platforming.

#Migration from Porter to AZIN

If you're on Porter and want to drop the Kubernetes layer, the migration is tractable. Both platforms deploy from Git, so your application code stays the same.

What changes

• Infrastructure layer: K8s pods and services become GKE Autopilot workloads. AZIN handles this mapping automatically — you don't write K8s manifests or size node groups.
• Database connections: If you're using Porter-managed RDS, AZIN provisions Cloud SQL (Postgres) in your GCP account. Connection strings update automatically.
• Networking: K8s ingress and services become Cloud Load Balancing. AZIN configures this.

What stays the same

• Your Dockerfiles and application code
• Git-push deploy workflow
• Environment variable management
• Preview environments per PR
• Custom domains and TLS

# azin.yaml — deploy to GCP without Kubernetes cluster overhead
name: my-app
services:
  web:
    build:
      type: railpack
    cloud: gcp
    region: europe-west4
    scaling:
      min: 1
      max: 10
      target_cpu: 70
  db:
    type: postgres
    plan: production
    cloud: gcp
    region: europe-west4

This deploys to GKE Autopilot with a Cloud SQL Postgres instance. No fixed cluster cost. No node groups to size.

# Migrate an existing app to AZIN on GCP
# (CLI is planned — dashboard-based migration available today)
azin init --from-repo github.com/your-org/your-app
azin cloud connect gcp --region europe-west4
azin deploy

For database migration, export from your Porter-managed RDS and import into AZIN-managed Cloud SQL. Both are fully managed Postgres — the migration is a standard pg_dump/pg_restore.

#Frequently asked questions

#Related comparisons

Evaluating other BYOC platforms? These comparisons cover the landscape:

• AZIN vs Flightcontrol — Flightcontrol deploys to AWS via ECS and is AWS-only. AZIN targets GCP today.
• AZIN vs Railway — Railway locks BYOC behind Enterprise. Best DX in PaaS, no infrastructure ownership on standard plans.
• AZIN vs Render — Render has no BYOC at any tier
• Best BYOC cloud platforms in 2026 — Full comparison of every bring-your-own-cloud option

Porter is a trademark of Porter Technologies, Inc. All product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners. AZIN is not affiliated with or endorsed by the companies mentioned on this page.