Amazon EC2 Container Service vs Rancher

Overview

Amazon EC2 Container Service

Stacks14.6K

Followers10.2K

Votes325

Rancher

Stacks952

Followers1.5K

Votes644

Amazon EC2 Container Service vs Rancher: What are the differences?

Markdown is the formatting language used to display text with different styles on websites. Below are the key differences between two popular container orchestration platforms, Amazon EC2 Container Service and Rancher.

Deployment Flexibility: Amazon EC2 Container Service (ECS) is Amazon's own container orchestration service that integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, providing a reliable and scalable solution. On the other hand, Rancher is an open-source platform that supports multiple container orchestration tools like Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, and Mesos. This versatility allows Rancher to work with a wider range of environments and technologies compared to ECS.
Ease of Use: ECS is tightly integrated with AWS, making it relatively easy to set up for users already familiar with the AWS ecosystem. Rancher, being independent of any cloud provider, offers a more user-friendly and intuitive interface that simplifies container management tasks. Users looking for a more straightforward setup process may find Rancher more appealing than ECS.
Supported Container Orchestration Tools: While ECS primarily supports Docker containers and Kubernetes workloads, Rancher offers native support for various container orchestration tools including Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, and Mesos. This flexibility in tool support gives users more options to choose the orchestration platform that best suits their needs when using Rancher.
Community and Support: ECS benefits from robust documentation and dedicated AWS support, offering users access to a wealth of resources and expertise. Rancher, being an open-source platform, relies heavily on its active community for support and troubleshooting. Users who prefer community-driven solutions may appreciate the collaborative environment provided by Rancher.
Cost Structure: AWS ECS follows Amazon's pay-as-you-go pricing model, where users are charged based on the resources consumed. Rancher, on the other hand, is open-source and free to use, but users may incur costs for support, maintenance, or additional features. Organizations looking to manage costs effectively may opt for Rancher due to its open-source nature.
Advanced Features and Customization: While ECS offers a straightforward and reliable container orchestration solution, Rancher provides advanced features like load balancing, monitoring, and multi-cloud management out of the box. Additionally, Rancher's extensibility allows users to customize and extend functionalities to meet specific requirements, making it a more versatile option for organizations with complex deployment needs.

In Summary, Amazon ECS and Rancher differ in deployment flexibility, ease of use, supported container orchestration tools, community support, cost structure, and advanced features, catering to diverse user preferences and requirements in container orchestration.

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Advice on Amazon EC2 Container Service, Rancher

Andres

Lead Senior Software Engineer at InTouch Technology

Jun 3, 2020

Decided

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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Detailed Comparison

Amazon EC2 Container Service	Rancher
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.	Rancher is an open source container management platform that includes full distributions of Kubernetes, Apache Mesos and Docker Swarm, and makes it simple to operate container clusters on any cloud or infrastructure platform.
Docker Compatibility;Managed Clusters;Programmatic Control;Task Definitions;Scheduler;Docker Repository	Manage Hosts, Deploy Containers, Monitor Resources;User Management & Collaboration;Native Docker APIs & Tools;Monitoring and Logging;Connect Containers, Manage Disks, Deploy Load Balancers;Docker App Catalog; Included Kubernetes Distribution;Included Docker Swarm Distribution; Included Mesos Distribution;Infrastructure Management
Statistics
Stacks 14.6K	Stacks 952
Followers 10.2K	Followers 1.5K
Votes 325	Votes 644
Pros & Cons
Pros 100 Backed by amazon 72 Familiar to ec2 53 Cluster based 42 Simple API 26 Iam roles	Pros 103 Easy to use 79 Open source and totally free 63 Multi-host docker-compose support 58 Load balancing and health check included 58 Simple Cons 10 Hosting Rancher can be complicated
Integrations
Docker Amazon EC2	Jenkins Datadog Google Compute Engine Docker Compose Amazon EC2 DigitalOcean GitHub Docker Kubernetes Drone.io

What are some alternatives to Amazon EC2 Container Service, Rancher?

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.

Docker Compose

With Compose, you define a multi-container application in a single file, then spin your application up in a single command which does everything that needs to be done to get it running.

Docker Swarm

Swarm serves the standard Docker API, so any tool which already communicates with a Docker daemon can use Swarm to transparently scale to multiple hosts: Dokku, Compose, Krane, Deis, DockerUI, Shipyard, Drone, Jenkins... and, of course, the Docker client itself.

Tutum

Tutum lets developers easily manage and run lightweight, portable, self-sufficient containers from any application. AWS-like control, Heroku-like ease. The same container that a developer builds and tests on a laptop can run at scale in Tutum.

Portainer

It is a universal container management tool. It works with Kubernetes, Docker, Docker Swarm and Azure ACI. It allows you to manage containers without needing to know platform-specific code.

Google Kubernetes Engine

Container Engine takes care of provisioning and maintaining the underlying virtual machine cluster, scaling your application, and operational logistics like logging, monitoring, and health management.

Codefresh

Automate and parallelize testing. Codefresh allows teams to spin up on-demand compositions to run unit and integration tests as part of the continuous integration process. Jenkins integration allows more complex pipelines.

Containerum

Containerum is built to aid cluster management, teamwork and resource allocation. Containerum runs on top of any Kubernetes cluster and provides a friendly Web UI for cluster management.

CAST.AI

It is an AI-driven cloud optimization platform for Kubernetes. Instantly cut your cloud bill, prevent downtime, and 10X the power of DevOps.

k3s

Certified Kubernetes distribution designed for production workloads in unattended, resource-constrained, remote locations or inside IoT appliances. Supports something as small as a Raspberry Pi or as large as an AWS a1.4xlarge 32GiB server.

Related Comparisons

Amazon EC2 Container Service vs Rancher: What are the differences?

Deployment Flexibility: Amazon EC2 Container Service (ECS) is Amazon's own container orchestration service that integrates seamlessly with other AWS services, providing a reliable and scalable solution. On the other hand, Rancher is an open-source platform that supports multiple container orchestration tools like Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, and Mesos. This versatility allows Rancher to work with a wider range of environments and technologies compared to ECS.
Ease of Use: ECS is tightly integrated with AWS, making it relatively easy to set up for users already familiar with the AWS ecosystem. Rancher, being independent of any cloud provider, offers a more user-friendly and intuitive interface that simplifies container management tasks. Users looking for a more straightforward setup process may find Rancher more appealing than ECS.
Supported Container Orchestration Tools: While ECS primarily supports Docker containers and Kubernetes workloads, Rancher offers native support for various container orchestration tools including Docker Swarm, Kubernetes, and Mesos. This flexibility in tool support gives users more options to choose the orchestration platform that best suits their needs when using Rancher.
Community and Support: ECS benefits from robust documentation and dedicated AWS support, offering users access to a wealth of resources and expertise. Rancher, being an open-source platform, relies heavily on its active community for support and troubleshooting. Users who prefer community-driven solutions may appreciate the collaborative environment provided by Rancher.
Cost Structure: AWS ECS follows Amazon's pay-as-you-go pricing model, where users are charged based on the resources consumed. Rancher, on the other hand, is open-source and free to use, but users may incur costs for support, maintenance, or additional features. Organizations looking to manage costs effectively may opt for Rancher due to its open-source nature.
Advanced Features and Customization: While ECS offers a straightforward and reliable container orchestration solution, Rancher provides advanced features like load balancing, monitoring, and multi-cloud management out of the box. Additionally, Rancher's extensibility allows users to customize and extend functionalities to meet specific requirements, making it a more versatile option for organizations with complex deployment needs.

Amazon EC2 Container Service vs Rancher

Overview