How much does a Kubernetes cluster actually cost in Germany, what is included in the price – and when is a provider-operated control plane more cost-effective than running your own? An overview of the key figures and criteria.
Kubernetes offerings with an operated control plane are usually billed per cluster or per node. At centron, the packages are fixed-price – you know in advance how much each month will cost. For comparison: IONOS starts at €83 per month for Managed Kubernetes and Azure Kubernetes Service at around €184 for a comparable configuration (as at August 2026); at centron, the cStack Starter begins at €29.99 including control plane and traffic.
| Parcel | vCPU | RAM | Storage | Price per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| cStack Starter | 6 | 12 GB | 120/120 GB | 29,99 € |
| cStack Developer | 12 | 24 GB | 360/360 GB | 149,99 € |
| cStack Standard | 25 | 96 GB | 1,200/1,200 GB | 349,99 € |
| cStack Premium | 60 | 192 GB | 3,600/3,600 GB | 699,99 € |
All prices are exclusive of VAT and do not include a set-up fee. New accounts receive a €200 starting credit. As per the centron price list.
A cStack Starter with 6 vCPUs, 12 GB RAM and 120 GB storage costs €29.99 per month – including the control plane, AutoScaler and cStack interface.
This is usually sufficient for development and test environments. If your requirements grow, you can switch to the next larger package without having to migrate.
The biggest difference between providers lies in how much operational work is actually taken off your hands. Hetzner does not offer Managed Kubernetes – there you run the cluster yourself. IONOS and Azure provide the control plane, but operating the nodes remains with you. At centron the tiers extend to Premium Full Managing, where the nodes are looked after as well.
centron operates etcd, the API server and the scheduler – including updates and security measures. You work exclusively with your own workloads.
Nodes are automatically added during peak loads and then removed again afterwards – without the need for manual intervention.
Manage clusters, nodes and workloads in your browser – without needing to use `kubectl` for every routine task.
A self-managed cluster is cheaper in terms of infrastructure alone, but ties up staff resources: control plane updates, etcd backups, certificate rotation and capacity planning are ongoing tasks. An operated control plane is usually worthwhile once a cluster is up and running in production and downtime starts to cost money.
Those who wish to take things a step further can combine Kubernetes with managed services – in which case centron will also take care of monitoring, patching and backing up the underlying systems.
A Kubernetes cluster is only as fast as the nodes it comprises. The key factor is the CPU performance that is actually guaranteed.
centron clusters run on the same infrastructure as the ccloud³ virtual machines – with a guaranteed 3.5 GHz per core in the power pools on AMD EPYC and Intel Xeon hardware. In the Geekbench single-core test with 4 GB RAM, centron achieves a score of 1,487.
This is particularly relevant for databases, API back-ends and any workloads that cannot be distributed across any number of pods.
A Kubernetes offering with an operated control plane is an operational promise. These questions distinguish robust solutions from mere infrastructure packages.
Note: Information on competitors reflects the publicly available position as of August 2026 and does not claim to be exhaustive; features and prices may have changed since. Only the current information provided by the respective providers is authoritative. The trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners; there are no partnerships. centron prices: entry-level prices plus VAT; details can be found on the product and pricing pages.
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