AWS Fargate vs Amazon EC2 comparison

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100% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Mar 6, 2024

We compared Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate based on our user's reviews in several parameters.

Both Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate offer valuable features such as scalability, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness, with positive feedback on customer service. However, EC2 is praised for its wide variety of instance types and integration options, while Fargate is commended for abstracting away infrastructure and efficient resource management.

Features: Amazon EC2 is praised for its scalability, flexibility, variety of instance types, reliable performance, global availability, customer support, and integration options. AWS Fargate stands out with its seamless scalability, ease of use, efficient resource management, abstraction of underlying infrastructure, server maintenance-free experience, high level of security and flexibility, and cost-effectiveness.

Pricing and ROI: The setup cost for Amazon EC2 is considered straightforward and easy to understand, while AWS Fargate is praised for its ease of setup. Users have also mentioned the affordability and flexibility of the pricing plans offered by AWS Fargate., Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate both offer positive and beneficial ROIs. EC2 is commended for its cost-effectiveness, scalability, and flexibility, while Fargate is praised for its efficiency, scalability, and enhanced performance.

Room for Improvement: Amazon EC2 has room for improvement in enhancing the user interface, increasing instance availability and reducing launch time. Additionally, better pricing structures and integration with other AWS services are suggested. AWS Fargate, on the other hand, needs improvement in container orchestration, visibility and monitoring tools, resource allocation, networking limitations, and customer support.

Deployment and customer support: The reviews suggest that both Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate have varying durations for the deployment, setup, or implementation phases of a new tech solution. However, AWS Fargate seems to have a more significant variation in the required duration, with users reporting timelines ranging from three months for deployment and an additional week for setup, to just a week for both deployment and setup. This emphasizes that the duration for establishing a new tech solution using AWS Fargate can vary widely depending on individual circumstances., The customer service for Amazon EC2 is highly regarded and positively praised. AWS Fargate also receives positive comments, with prompt and efficient assistance and knowledgeable support demonstrated. Overall, customers seem satisfied with both products' customer service.

The summary above is based on 52 interviews we conducted recently with Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Fargate vs. Amazon EC2 Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"I use it for NextCloud and for developer purposes.""EC2 provides a lot of flexibility. If you don't want to have a separate on-premise database, you can put it on the cloud with EC2. You can adjust the instance type according to your needs. You select a size and get a certain amount of specific memory, CPUs, etc. You set the redirect limit, and from there, you install the software, database servers, application servers, and whatever you want.""Configuration can be changed at any time and it's very scalable.""I can quickly create a VM instance with just one click.""We don't have to worry about scalability issues or maintenance or security. It's all taken care of.""The setup is straightforward and it takes around an hour.""The most important aspects are that the solution is scalable and easy to manage.""What I found most valuable in Amazon EC2 is that you only pay for what you use, versus an on-premise deployment that requires you to pay for the cost of the server. When it's on-premise, you'll need to meet more specifications and requirements, and the purchasing process even takes time. As Amazon EC2 is cloud-based, you'll only pay when you use the service."

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"AWS Fargate has many valuable services. It does the job with minimal trouble. It's very observable. You can see what's going on and you have logs. You have everything. You can troubleshoot it. It's affordable and it's flexible.""We appreciate the simple use of containers within this solution, it makes managing the containers quick and easy.""The most valuable feature of AWS Fargate is its ease of use.""Fargate itself is a stable product. We are quite satisfied with its performance.""If you create your deployment with a good set of rules for how to scale in, you can just set it and forget it.""I like their containerization service. You can use Docker or something similar and deploy quickly without the know-how related to, for example, Kubernetes. If you use AKS or Kubernetes, then you have to have the know-how. But for Fargate, you don't need to have the know-how there. You just deploy the container or the image, and then you have the container, and you can use it as AWS takes care of the rest. This makes it easier for those getting started or if you don't have a strong DevOps team inside your organization.""The most valuable feature of Fargate is that it's self-managed. You don't have to configure your own clusters or deploy any Kubernetes clusters. This simplifies the initial deployment and scaling process."

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Cons
"The ease of migrating applications could be improved.""It is a little too expensive.""One of the challenges is the AMI upgrades.""Amazon EC2 could improve the stability.""The solution’s pricing and downtimes could be improved.""They have to provide clarity on pricing. It's not transparent.""Amazon EC2 could improve the console view. The ability to see the console view directly would be helpful, similar to what VMware has. Additionally, when the system is rebooting we are able to see a screenshot of the UI, but it would be a lot better if we could interact directly with the console level.""The customization could be simplified."

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"I heard from my team that it's not easy to predict the cost. That is the only issue we have with AWS Fargate, but I think that's acceptable. AWS Fargate isn't user-friendly. Anything related to Software as a Service or microservice architecture is not easy to implement. You're required to have DevOps from your side to implement the solution. AWS Fargate is just a temporary solution for us. When we grow to a certain level, we may use AKS for better control.""We would like to see some improvement in the process documents that are provided with this product, particularly for auto-scaling and other configuration tools that are a bit complicated.""AWS Fargate could improve the privileged mode containers. We had some problems and they were not able to run.""The main area for improvement is the cost, which could be lowered to be more competitive with other major cloud providers.""We faced challenges in vertically scaling our workload.""I would like to see the older dashboard instead of the newer version. I don't like the new dashboard.""If there are any options to manage containers, that would be good. That relates more to the cost point. For example, over the next three months, I'll be making a comparison between solutions like CAST AI and other software-as-a-service platforms that offer Kubernetes management with an emphasis on cost reduction."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Pricing appears to be cheap, however, it is extremely difficult in calculating what something will cost."
  • "It has helped to reduce costs with infrastructure."
  • "EC2 pricing is somewhat transparent, in that AWS provides pricing for all instance types. However, the number of pricing options can be confusing."
  • "For our usage, the cost is approximately $20,000 to $23,000 per month."
  • "There is a license required to use this solution and we pay on a monthly basis."
  • "The price is reasonable, but there is definitely an opportunity to lower it in instances which are of a higher configuration, because they have been typically used for the long term."
  • "Amazon EC2 has a pay-as-you-use cost model."
  • "The clients have found the billing of Amazon EC2 good, but the price could be less high. There is a monthly subscription to use the solution."
  • More Amazon EC2 Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "I rate the price of AWS Fargate a four out of five."
  • "We would advise that this solution has a slightly-higher price point than others on the market. There is a free plan available for start-ups, but the free and lower range licensing models do not provide the full functionality."
  • More AWS Fargate Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer:Amazon EC2 is really reliable and provides great flexibility.
    Top Answer:The solution has different pricing models, and its cost differs when you purchase it for one year or three years.
    Top Answer:The solution’s pricing and downtimes could be improved. I would like to have a better pricing model for Amazon EC2 instances because it comes with different pricing models. The solution's cost differs… more »
    Top Answer:Fargate itself is a stable product. We are quite satisfied with its performance.
    Top Answer:We have encountered some issues recently. For example, AWS released a new feature called a better quarter, which greatly helped us. Before that, we faced challenges in vertically scaling our workload… more »
    Top Answer:On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it around eight. I would recommend using the product based on the specific workloads they are dealing with. For instance, if they have strict sub-second… more »
    Ranking
    4th
    out of 16 in Compute Service
    Views
    2,594
    Comparisons
    1,667
    Reviews
    46
    Average Words per Review
    347
    Rating
    8.6
    6th
    out of 16 in Compute Service
    Views
    6,755
    Comparisons
    4,089
    Reviews
    5
    Average Words per Review
    395
    Rating
    8.2
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, EC2
    Learn More
    Overview

    Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers.

    Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use. Amazon EC2 provides developers the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate them from common failure scenarios.

    A new compute engine that enables you to use containers as a fundamental compute primitive without having to manage the underlying instances. With Fargate, you don’t need to provision, configure, or scale virtual machines in your clusters to run containers. Fargate can be used with Amazon ECS today, with plans to support Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (Amazon EKS) in the future.

    Fargate has flexible configuration options so you can closely match your application needs and granular, per-second billing.

    Sample Customers
    Netflix, Expedia, TimeInc., Novaris, airbnb, Lamborghini
    Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Computer Software Company31%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Government8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm20%
    Computer Software Company17%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Educational Organization6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Financial Services Firm26%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    Comms Service Provider5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business46%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise39%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business20%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise68%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise13%
    Large Enterprise50%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise70%
    Buyer's Guide
    AWS Fargate vs. Amazon EC2
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Fargate vs. Amazon EC2 and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,857 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Amazon EC2 is ranked 4th in Compute Service with 56 reviews while AWS Fargate is ranked 6th in Compute Service with 7 reviews. Amazon EC2 is rated 8.6, while AWS Fargate is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of Amazon EC2 writes "Easy to scale and valuable features include the security group and key management". On the other hand, the top reviewer of AWS Fargate writes "Efficiently auto-scales and good performance". Amazon EC2 is most compared with Apache Spark, AWS Lambda, Apache NiFi, AWS Batch and Google App Engine, whereas AWS Fargate is most compared with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, AWS Lambda, AWS Batch, Oracle Compute Cloud Service and Apache Spark. See our AWS Fargate vs. Amazon EC2 report.

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    We monitor all Compute Service reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.