Kubernetes vs App Platform
Both run containers. They differ in how much of the platform you want to own.
What each product is
App Platform is managed container hosting. You push an image or connect a Git repo; the platform handles deployment, scaling, TLS and DNS. You pay for runtime hours and can scale to zero.
Managed Kubernetes is a real Kubernetes cluster with a WAYSCloud-operated control plane and private worker nodes you size yourself. You bring Helm charts, operators, ingress controllers and GitOps. You pay a cluster fee plus the nodes by the hour.
When to use App Platform
- One to a handful of services, each a container
- You want Git-push deploys, rollbacks and automatic TLS without configuration
- Traffic is uneven and idle cost matters (scale to zero)
- Nobody on the team wants to learn
kubectl
When to use Kubernetes
- You already deploy with Helm, Kustomize, ArgoCD or Flux
- You need operators, sidecars, CRDs, network policies or custom ingress
- You run many services with shared infrastructure (service mesh, queues, cron jobs)
- You need persistent volumes, StatefulSets or node affinity
- You want the same cluster API you use elsewhere, with EU data residency
Key differences
| App Platform | Kubernetes | |
|---|---|---|
| Unit | App (container + revisions) | Cluster (control plane + node pools) |
| You manage | Image and environment | Everything above the node: workloads, ingress, RBAC |
| Scaling | Instances per app, scale to zero | Nodes per pool (1–16), HPA/VPA inside the cluster |
| Networking | Automatic routing + TLS | Load balancers on demand, extra IPv4 with reverse DNS, API allow-list |
| Persistent storage | No | Yes (CSI volumes; Standard SSD by default) |
| Backups | Revisions | Scheduled and on-demand cluster + volume backups, restore from the dashboard |
| Access | Logs, metrics | kubectl, kubeconfig, Cloud Shell |
| Billing | Hourly per instance | Monthly cluster fee + hourly nodes + per-use IPs/LB + per-GB disks/backups |
| Time to first deploy | Minutes | 10–20 minutes to a running cluster, then your tooling |
Decision guide
Start with App Platform if your app is a container and you want the platform to disappear.
Start with Kubernetes if you have a cluster-shaped workload today, or a team that already speaks Kubernetes.
The two combine well: run the platform pieces (databases via Databases, object storage via Storage) as managed services and choose per workload whether it lives in an App or in the cluster.