Difference between pre and post 1.18 addons

[Callisto13]

Copied from conversation in Slack to create searchable context

Hi, what’s different between EKS add-ons in eks v1.18 above, [when] we manage it our self when creating cluster from eksctl , is there any different between eksctl update addon xxxx with eksctl utils update-xxxx ? thanks in advance…

[Callisto13]

response from @aclevername

EKS Add-ons are managed by EKS, meaning that they monitor the add-on to ensure its functioning and provide updates. eksctl create/get/update/delete addon are all supported, as well as eksctl utils describe-addon-versions. It's essentially the new and recommended way to deploy add-ons.

The legacy pre-1.18 method that you update via eksctl utils update-xxx hands the responsibility of updating the add-on to eksctl (we hard-code into eksctl what image version the addon should be using for a given EKS version). This method is still supported, however I believe EKS will slowly make addons enabled by default over the coming versions, so switching to EKS add-ons is advisable.