Amazon EC2 Container Service vs AWS Fargate

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AWS Fargate vs Amazon EC2 Container Service: What are the differences?

AWS Fargate and Amazon EC2 Container Service are two popular container management services provided by Amazon Web Services. The key differences between AWS Fargate and Amazon EC2 Container Service are:

  1. Serverless vs. Server-Based Deployment: AWS Fargate is a serverless compute engine for containers that allows users to run containers without having to manage the underlying infrastructure, while Amazon EC2 Container Service (ECS) requires users to provision, configure, and scale EC2 instances to run containers.

  2. Pricing Model: AWS Fargate uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model, where users pay for the vCPU and memory resources used by their containers, while Amazon ECS allows users to choose between on-demand EC2 instances, reserved EC2 instances, or spot instances, with pricing varying based on the instance type and usage.

  3. Scaling Capability: AWS Fargate offers auto-scaling capabilities that automatically adjust the resources allocated to containers based on demand, while Amazon ECS requires users to configure and manage scaling policies to adjust the number of EC2 instances or containers running based on workload requirements.

  4. Integration with AWS Lambda: AWS Fargate seamlessly integrates with AWS Lambda, allowing users to easily switch between running containers and serverless functions, whereas Amazon ECS does not offer direct integration with AWS Lambda.

  5. Resource Isolation: AWS Fargate provides stronger resource isolation for containers by running each container in its own kernel-protected environment, while Amazon ECS relies on EC2 instances for resource isolation, which may offer slightly less isolation compared to Fargate.

In Summary, the key differences between AWS Fargate and Amazon EC2 Container Service include serverless vs. server-based deployment, pricing model, scaling capability, integration with AWS Lambda, and resource isolation.

Decisions about Amazon EC2 Container Service and AWS Fargate
Andres Paredes
Lead Senior Software Engineer at InTouch Technology · | 3 upvotes · 89.3K views

If you want to integrate your cluster and control end to end your pipeline with AWS tools like ECR and Code Pipeline your best option is ECS using a EC2 instance. There are pros and cons but it's easier to integrate using cloud formation templates and visual UI for approvals, etc. ECS is free, you need to pay only for the EC2 instance but unfortunately, it is not standard then you cannot use standard tools to see and manage your Kubernetes. EKS in the other hand uses standard Kubernates definitions but you need to pay for the service and also for the EC2 instance(s) you have in your cluster.

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Pros of Amazon EC2 Container Service
Pros of AWS Fargate
  • 100
    Backed by amazon
  • 72
    Familiar to ec2
  • 53
    Cluster based
  • 42
    Simple API
  • 26
    Iam roles
  • 7
    Scheduler
  • 7
    Cluster management
  • 7
    Programmatic Control
  • 4
    Container-enabled applications
  • 4
    Socker support
  • 2
    No additional cost
  • 1
    Easy to use and cheap
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    Cons of Amazon EC2 Container Service
    Cons of AWS Fargate
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      • 2
        Expensive

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      What is Amazon EC2 Container Service?

      Amazon EC2 Container Service lets you launch and stop container-enabled applications with simple API calls, allows you to query the state of your cluster from a centralized service, and gives you access to many familiar Amazon EC2 features like security groups, EBS volumes and IAM roles.

      What is AWS Fargate?

      AWS Fargate is a technology for Amazon ECS and EKS* that allows you to run containers without having to manage servers or clusters. With AWS Fargate, you no longer have to provision, configure, and scale clusters of virtual machines to run containers.

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      What are some alternatives to Amazon EC2 Container Service and AWS Fargate?
      Kubernetes
      Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers. It handles scheduling onto nodes in a compute cluster and actively manages workloads to ensure that their state matches the users declared intentions.
      Git
      Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.
      GitHub
      GitHub is the best place to share code with friends, co-workers, classmates, and complete strangers. Over three million people use GitHub to build amazing things together.
      Visual Studio Code
      Build and debug modern web and cloud applications. Code is free and available on your favorite platform - Linux, Mac OSX, and Windows.
      Docker
      The Docker Platform is the industry-leading container platform for continuous, high-velocity innovation, enabling organizations to seamlessly build and share any application — from legacy to what comes next — and securely run them anywhere
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