TL;DR: EKS Distro = kops + Kubernetes fixes + aws-iam-authenticator AWS has recently launched EKS Distro, the Kubernetes distribution that powers its managed Kubernetes offer, called Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS). This means that customers no longer have to choose between EKS (as a managed service) and some other Kubernetes setup. Instead, they can choose between EKS as a service managed by AWS or managed by themselves. The application hosted on top won’t observe any difference.