--- title: "Choosing the right OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes Plan: Free or Standard" description: "Explore OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes plans: Free and Standard. Discover which plan suits your cloud projects and get started quickly." url: https://docs.ovhcloud.com/en/guides/public-cloud/containers-orchestration/managed-kubernetes/mks-plans lang: en lastUpdated: 2026-02-03 --- # Choosing the right OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes Plan: Free or Standard ## Objective This guide provides an overview of OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes Service (MKS) plans, aiming to present the available plan options **Free** and **Standard** and their primary characteristics. It is intended to help readers understand the purpose of each plan and navigate the differences without making recommendations. ## Free vs Standard plan comparison OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes Service (MKS) offers two plans, **Free Plan** and **Standard Plan**, designed to address different workloads and use cases. This section highlights their key differences, focusing on architecture, availability, and scalability. ### Control plane The control plane orchestrates the Kubernetes cluster, handling scheduling, scaling, and API requests. The Free plan provides a single zone managed control plane suitable for development or small projects. In contrast, the Standard plan includes cross-availability-zone (AZ) resilience, ensuring the cluster continues to operate even if one AZ experiences an outage. Example: A Standard plan cluster can remain fully functional during an AZ failure, whereas a Free plan cluster relies on a single zone. ### Availability Availability measures the expected uptime of the service. The Free plan offers a 99.5% SLO, appropriate for non critical workloads. The Standard plan provides a 99.99% SLA at General Availability, making it suitable for production environments that require high reliability. Example: A Free plan cluster may experience roughly 43 minutes of downtime per month, while a Standard plan cluster reduces this to about 4 minutes. ### etcd storage etcd maintains cluster state and configuration. The Free plan uses a shared etcd storage with a maximum capacity of 400 MB, which suffices for small deployments. The Standard plan uses dedicated etcd storage up to 8 GB, supporting larger clusters and heavier workloads. ### Maximum cluster size Cluster size defines the number of worker nodes in the Kubernetes cluster. The Free plan supports up to 100 nodes, suitable for learning, testing, or small-scale projects. The Standard plan scales up to 500 nodes, enabling medium to large production deployments. ### Regional availability Regional availability determines the number of zones on which the cluster is deployed. The Free plan is limited to a single zone, while the Standard plan is deployed across three availability zones (in 3-AZ regions), improving resilience and minimising the impact of outages at the zone level. Example: A cluster with the Standard plan deployed in a 3-AZ region can maintain application continuity if a zone goes down, while a cluster with the Free plan would go down. #### Supported regions by plan The availability of OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes varies by plan. The Free plan is available in multiple single-zone regions worldwide, while the Standard plan is available in both single-zone and multi-zone regions for enhanced resilience. For a complete list of supported regions by plan and their deployment architecture (1-AZ vs 3-AZ), see the following guide: [Datacenters, nodes and storage flavors - Regional availability by MKS plan](/en/guides/public-cloud/containers-orchestration/managed-kubernetes/datacenters-nodes-storage-flavors.md). #### Standard plan exclusive features In addition to multi-zone deployment, the Standard plan includes advanced features not available on the Free plan: - **Floating IPs per node**: Automatically assign public Floating IPs to worker nodes in a node pool for direct public access and node bandwidth usage. This feature is exclusively available on the Standard plan. For more information, see the [Using Floating IPs on MKS Standard](/en/guides/public-cloud/containers-orchestration/managed-kubernetes/using-floating-ips.md) guide. - **Cross-AZ resilience**: Enhanced cluster availability across multiple availability zones (in 3-AZ regions). - **Production-grade SLA**: 99.9% SLA for 1-AZ regions, 99.99% SLA for 3-AZ regions. - **Dedicated etcd storage**: Up to 8GB for larger clusters. - **Up to 500 nodes**: Support for large-scale production deployments. ### Summary The following table summarizes the key differences between the Free plan and the Standard plan of OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes Service (MKS): | Plan | Free | Standard | | --------------------- | ------------------------ | ------------------------------------ | | ControlPlane | Managed | Managed & Cross-AZ resilient (3-AZ) | | Availability | 99.5% SLO | 99.9% SLA (1-AZ) / 99.99% SLA (3-AZ) | | etcd | Shared, up to 400MB | Dedicated, up to 8GB | | Max cluster size | Up to 100 nodes | Up to 500 nodes | | Regional availability | Single-zone regions only | 1-AZ and 3-AZ regions available | This summary provides a quick overview of the differences between the Free plan and the Standard plan, highlighting architecture, availability, storage, cluster size, and regional deployment. ## Go further To have an overview of the OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes service, visit the [OVHcloud Managed Kubernetes page](https://www.ovhcloud.com/en-gb/public-cloud/kubernetes/). To explore detailed quotas, resource limits, and regional restrictions for the Free plan and Standard plan, consult our [Known limits](/en/guides/public-cloud/containers-orchestration/managed-kubernetes/known-limits.md) guide. This guide provides in-depth technical specifications to help you plan and scale your Kubernetes clusters effectively. To deploy your first application on your Kubernetes cluster, we invite you to follow our guides to [configure default settings for kubectl](/en/guides/public-cloud/containers-orchestration/managed-kubernetes/configure-kubectl.md) and to [deploy a Hello World application](/en/guides/public-cloud/containers-orchestration/managed-kubernetes/deploy-hello-world.md). If you need training or technical assistance to implement our solutions, contact your sales representative or click on [this link](https://www.ovhcloud.com/en-gb/professional-services/) to get a quote and ask our Professional Services experts for a custom analysis of your project. Join our [community of users](https://community.ovhcloud.com/).