AKS vs Azure Web App – When to Choose Which?

Criteria	Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)	Azure Web App ( App Service )
Use Case	Microservices, complex distributed apps, container orchestration	Simple web apps, APIs, or monolithic workloads
Scalability	Advanced autoscaling at container/pod level	Built-in autoscale for instances
Control	Full control over networking, security, and runtime	Managed platform, limited infrastructure control
Complexity	Requires Kubernetes expertise	Easy to set up and manage
CI/CD	ntegrates with Azure DevOps/GitHub Actions, flexible pipelines	Native CI/CD support with minimal setup
Cost	Pay for cluster nodes and infra (can be higher for small workloads)	Pay per app plan (simpler, often cheaper for small apps)
Best For	Large-scale, containerized enterprise apps	Quick deployments, small-to-medium web apps, APIs
Examples	Banking microservices, AI inference workloads, enterprise SaaS	Company website, REST API, internal dashboards

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