t3.medium as an EKS node
2 vCPU4 GiBx86_64Intel Skylake E5 2686 v5AWS us-east-1T3 Medium
Where the t3.medium goes
Default EKS setup: EKS, VPC CNI default (ENI limit).
CPU1.73 of 2 vCPU left for your pods
Memory3.18 GiB of 4 GiB left for your pods
your podsDaemonSets (200m, 300 MiB assumed)kubelet reservedeviction
17max pods per node
$30.37on demand / month · $0.0416/h
$11.56spot / month (varies)
t3.medium EKS max pods and allocatable memory — quick answers
- How many pods can a t3.medium run as a node with EKS, VPC CNI default (ENI limit)? Up to 17; kubelet keeps 542 MiB of memory and 70m CPU, leaving 3.47 GiB and 1.93 vCPU for pods.
- How many pods can a t3.medium run as a node with EKS, prefix delegation? Up to 110; kubelet keeps 1565 MiB of memory and 70m CPU, leaving 2.47 GiB and 1.93 vCPU for pods.
- How many 500m / 1 GiB pods fit? 3 per node after DaemonSets; 4 nodes for 10 replicas, about $121.47/month on demand.
What kubelet reserves on t3.medium
| Setup | Max pods | kube-reserved CPU | Memory reserved + eviction | Allocatable CPU | Allocatable memory | Memory usable |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EKS, VPC CNI default (ENI limit) secondary IPs per ENI | 17 | 70m | 442 Mi + 100 Mi | 1.93 | 3.47 GiB | 86.8% |
| EKS, prefix delegation ENABLE_PREFIX_DELEGATION=true | 110 | 70m | 1465 Mi + 100 Mi | 1.93 | 2.47 GiB | 61.8% |
How these numbers are computed: reservation formulas. How many subnet IPs a t3.medium takes with the VPC CNI: EKS max pods and IP calculator. Check a live node with kubectl describe node → Allocatable.
How many pods fit on one t3.medium
Assumes DaemonSets (CNI, kube-proxy, log and metrics agents) request 200m CPU, 300 Mi and 3 pods per node. Try your own numbers in the node calculator.
| Pod requests (CPU / memory) | EKS, VPC CNI default (ENI limit) | EKS, prefix delegation | $ per pod / month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100m / 128 Mi | 14 | 17 | $2.17 |
| 250m / 256 Mi | 6 | 6 | $5.06 |
| 250m / 512 Mi | 6 | 4 | $5.06 |
| 500m / 512 Mi | 3 | 3 | $10.12 |
| 500m / 1024 Mi | 3 | 2 | $10.12 |
| 1000m / 1024 Mi | 1 | 1 | $30.37 |
| 1000m / 2048 Mi | 1 | 1 | $30.37 |
| 2000m / 4096 Mi | 0 | 0 | — |
| 4000m / 8192 Mi | 0 | 0 | — |
Similar EKS node types
| Type | vCPU | GiB | Alloc CPU | Alloc memory | Max pods | $/month | $ per alloc GiB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| t4g.medium | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 3.47 GiB | 17 | $24.53 | $7.07 |
| t3a.medium | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 3.47 GiB | 17 | $27.45 | $7.91 |
| t2.medium | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 3.47 GiB | 17 | $33.87 | $9.76 |
| t8i.medium | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 2.47 GiB | 110 | $36.44 | $14.74 |
| c6g.large | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 3.34 GiB | 29 | $49.64 | $14.85 |
| c7g.large | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 3.34 GiB | 29 | $52.92 | $15.84 |
| c6a.large | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 3.34 GiB | 29 | $55.84 | $16.71 |
| c6gd.large | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 3.34 GiB | 29 | $56.06 | $16.78 |
Closest match on other clouds
| Type | vCPU | GiB | Alloc CPU | Alloc memory | Max pods | $/month | $ per alloc GiB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| e2-medium | 2 | 4 | 0.94 | 2.90 GiB | 110 | $40.38 | $13.91 |
| d2plsv6 | 2 | 4 | 1.90 | 2.90 GiB | 250 | $45.26 | $15.59 |
| n4a-highcpu-2 | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 2.90 GiB | 110 | $47.42 | $16.34 |
| d2plsv5 | 2 | 4 | 1.90 | 2.90 GiB | 250 | $49.64 | $17.10 |
| n4d-highcpu-2 | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 2.90 GiB | 110 | $52.17 | $17.97 |
| c2d-highcpu-2 | 2 | 4 | 1.93 | 2.90 GiB | 110 | $54.72 | $18.85 |