AWS Auto Scaling vs Amazon CloudWatch comparison

Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Auto Scaling are both solutions in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category. Amazon CloudWatch is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.1, while AWS Auto Scaling is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.7. Amazon CloudWatch holds a 1.3% mindshare in APM, compared to AWS Auto Scaling’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Amazon CloudWatch users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 91% of AWS Auto Scaling users who would recommend it.

Amazon CloudWatch

Read 48 Amazon CloudWatch reviews

4,548 Views
2,410 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

AWS Auto Scaling

Read 22 AWS Auto Scaling reviews

802 Views
754 Comparison Views

91% willing to recommend

Amazon CloudWatch

AWS Auto Scaling

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between AWS Auto Scaling and Amazon CloudWatch based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Auto Scaling vs. Amazon CloudWatch Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Auto Scaling vs. Amazon CloudWatch

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 881,114 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

ROI

Sentiment score

6.8

Amazon CloudWatch reduces monitoring costs, boosts operational efficiency, is vital for oversight, but not direct revenue, especially for small projects.

Sentiment score

1.0

AWS Auto Scaling optimizes costs and delivers significant ROI, reducing expenses for businesses and proving its financial value.

Amazon CloudWatch offers cost-saving advantages by being an inbuilt solution that requires no separate setup or maintenance for monitoring tasks.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Auto Scaling report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

7.4

Amazon CloudWatch support is reliable, with varying response times and expertise based on support level, premium ensures faster help.

Sentiment score

4.4

Users praise AWS Auto Scaling's customer service for being efficient and helpful, despite occasional slow response times.

In recent years, due to business expansion, knowledge levels among support engineers seem to vary.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

While using their cloud and cloud resources, if you have an issue with CloudWatch, you must pay additional monthly fees to get time from dedicated tech support.

S K Mishra

founder, ceo at Techrev Solutions Pvt Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

AWS support is very good.

Jay Sevak

AWS Cloud at AeonX Digital Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Auto Scaling report

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

Amazon CloudWatch excels in scalability and performance, efficiently managing data and adapts quickly to diverse organizational needs.

Sentiment score

7.2

AWS Auto Scaling offers easy, robust scalability for medium to large enterprises, efficiently handling user increases and traffic spikes.

It is already there as a managed service from AWS.

Azam S M

Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC

Amazon CloudWatch's scalability is managed by AWS.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

Scalability is impressive, as it allowed us to go from 1,000 to 10,000 active users within a week during a traffic spike.

Mbula Mboma

AWS Cloud Re-Start Program Specialist at Orange RDC (Congo)

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Auto Scaling report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

8.1

Amazon CloudWatch is praised for its reliability and performance, though some note occasional data delays and slowness in low-capacity environments.

Sentiment score

5.9

AWS Auto Scaling is stable and reliable, though occasional scaling delays and server issues require effective deployment and management.

I sometimes notice slowness when Amazon CloudWatch agents are installed on machines with less capacity, causing me to use other monitoring tools.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Auto Scaling report

Room For Improvement

Users seek better customization, visualization, and integration in CloudWatch, citing high costs, steep learning curve, and scalability challenges.

AWS Auto Scaling requires faster launches, better usability, improved documentation, enhanced security, automation, scalability, cost optimization, and clearer instructions.

When using third-party dashboards such as Kibana or Grafana and other visualization tools, there should be a way to feed CloudWatch's data and logging capabilities into these visualization tools.

S K Mishra

founder, ceo at Techrev Solutions Pvt Ltd

We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visualization on Amazon CloudWatch.

Azam S M

Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC

Maybe Amazon Web Services can improve by providing a library for CloudWatch with some useful features.

Rohit Bhosale

Senior Software Engineer at Carnera

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

This complexity led me to migrate to CloudFormation, which simplifies the deployment process.

Mbula Mboma

AWS Cloud Re-Start Program Specialist at Orange RDC (Congo)

If you could add more training on how to use it correctly and on the functions that I haven't used before or some people have not really used before, that would help.

Ishaka Michael Efe

DevOps Engineer Intern at HNG Tech

It requires a downtime before deploying the Auto Scaling group.

Jay Sevak

AWS Cloud at AeonX Digital Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Auto Scaling report

Setup Cost

Amazon CloudWatch pricing is variable, with costs ranging from $25 to $350, depending on usage and AWS service integration.

AWS Auto Scaling costs vary; perceived as reasonable or expensive, depending on scaling extent, application needs, and usage.

Overall, the pricing of Amazon CloudWatch is very expensive.

S K Mishra

founder, ceo at Techrev Solutions Pvt Ltd

Amazon CloudWatch charges more for custom metrics as well as for changes in the timeline.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

The pricing of Auto Scaling is medium range, neither high nor low.

Jay Sevak

AWS Cloud at AeonX Digital Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Auto Scaling report

Valuable Features

Amazon CloudWatch offers real-time data, AWS integration, efficient monitoring, user-friendly interface, and versatile dashboards for enhanced system performance.

AWS Auto Scaling offers automated scaling, integrates with CloudWatch, supports Kubernetes, and enhances performance through efficient resource management.

If anything is wrong with your server or services, it means it is affecting your service and automatically indicates that user experience is degraded.

Azam S M

Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC

Being an inbuilt solution from AWS, it saves time on installation, setup, and maintenance.

Satheesh Papisetty

Digital Services & Engagement Senior Manager at AXA

The best features of Amazon CloudWatch need to improve visibility into the network because when using hundreds of network resources such as transit gateway, VPNs, routers, route tables, and firewalls, it does not give many details in a structured manner.

S K Mishra

founder, ceo at Techrev Solutions Pvt Ltd

For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon CloudWatch report

During peak traffic times, the Auto Scaling group can be deployed to ensure that the client works well, and the traffic remains average.

Jay Sevak

AWS Cloud at AeonX Digital Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

The automation aspect where you can automate it to whatever you want is what I value the most about Auto Scaling.

Ishaka Michael Efe

DevOps Engineer Intern at HNG Tech

Its automatic scaling capabilities are very useful.

Mbula Mboma

AWS Cloud Re-Start Program Specialist at Orange RDC (Congo)

For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Auto Scaling report

Categories and Ranking

Amazon CloudWatch

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

13th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Log Management (15th), Cloud Monitoring Software (11th)

AWS Auto Scaling

Ranking in Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

14th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

6.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability category, the mindshare of Amazon CloudWatch is 1.3%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Auto Scaling is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Amazon CloudWatch	1.3%
AWS Auto Scaling	0.4%
Other	98.3%

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

Featured Reviews

Azam S M

Infrastructure Lead at Danat Fz LLC

Has provided reliable monitoring and alerting through extensive metric tracking and dashboard configuration

Amazon CloudWatch itself provides a lot of data. However, for visualization, we need to use third-party tools. We are in a process of integrating Grafana, Loki, and Prometheus to have better visualization on Amazon CloudWatch. We are also integrating Grafana with the application itself to get the application data and logs. Alternatively, there is AWS Kinesis and Glue where you can scrape the logs and have visualization, but a more easy option is Grafana. If you want to get a proper visual representation to see what is happening, then you need to integrate a third-party tool. Amazon CloudWatch has all the data, but to see what is happening, you need some third-party tool.

Read full review

Ishaka Michael Efe

DevOps Engineer Intern at HNG Tech

Automation has simplified traffic management and improved workload efficiency

I'm not really sure what improvements I would want to see in AWS Auto Scaling because I haven't really used it extensively or explored most of it. To the extent that I've used it so far, I think it is very good. I can't really say for certain what should be improved because I haven't really explored it a lot. However, what I've been using it for has been very good. If there could be training for AWS Auto Scaling, that would be fine. If you could add more training on how to use it correctly and on the functions that I haven't used before or some people have not really used before, that would help. If there could be more documentation and training on it, that would be beneficial.

Read full review

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

15%

Computer Software Company

10%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Transportation Company

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	24

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	12
Midsize Enterprise	2
Large Enterprise	11

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon CloudWatch?

The monitoring features are valuable.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon CloudWatch?

No specific setup costs were mentioned.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Amazon CloudWatch?

See all answers

What do you like most about AWS Auto Scaling?

The tool's most valuable feature is vertical auto-scaling, which is easy to use. However, most companies now prefer horizontal scaling. I set up the health check integration to monitor CPU usage. W...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Auto Scaling?

I'm not sure about the pricing aspect of AWS Auto Scaling or the cost of it.

See all answers

What needs improvement with AWS Auto Scaling?

See all answers

Comparisons

Grafana Loki vs Amazon CloudWatch

Compared 16% of the time

Amazon OpenSearch Service vs Amazon CloudWatch

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs Amazon CloudWatch

Compared 6% of the time

Dynatrace vs Amazon CloudWatch

Compared 5% of the time

Datadog vs Amazon CloudWatch

Compared 4% of the time

More Amazon CloudWatch Competitors

Akamai mPulse vs AWS Auto Scaling

Compared 30% of the time

VMware Aria Operations for Applications vs AWS Auto Scaling

Compared 30% of the time

Splunk ITSI (IT Service Intelligence) vs AWS Auto Scaling

Compared 22% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs AWS Auto Scaling

Compared 18% of the time

More AWS Auto Scaling Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon CloudWatch

January 2026

Download Amazon CloudWatch product report

Buyer's Guide

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability

January 2026

Download AWS Auto Scaling product report

Also Known As

No data available

AWS Auto-Scaling

Overview

Amazon CloudWatch integrates seamlessly with AWS, providing real-time monitoring and alerting features. Its interface supports task automation, enhancing troubleshooting and analytics capabilities, while offering strong security and scalability at a cost-effective rate.

Amazon CloudWatch is an impactful platform for monitoring AWS resources and managing application performance. It simplifies infrastructure performance monitoring by providing comprehensive analytics capabilities, including application insights and event scheduling. Users appreciate CloudWatch for its detailed metrics, dashboards, and support in issuing alerts to detect anomalies. It efficiently tracks performance, optimizes resource utilization, and ensures service availability. CloudWatch is recognized for its robust alerting features and integration with other AWS services, further supporting its resource monitoring capabilities. However, there is room for improvement in dashboard customization, log streaming speed, and integration with non-AWS services. Enhancements in API integration, machine learning features, and support for third-party tools are also desired.

What features does Amazon CloudWatch offer?

Seamless Integration: Works effortlessly with AWS for cohesive service management.
Advanced Metrics: Provides detailed monitoring of CPU, memory, and more.
Real-time Monitoring: Offers up-to-the-minute alerts on infrastructure status.
Dashboards: User-friendly and informative for quick insights.
Automation: Supports task automation for efficient troubleshooting.

What benefits does Amazon CloudWatch provide?

Cost-effectiveness: Efficient resource monitoring without high costs.
Scalability: Easily adapts to growing infrastructure needs.
Security: Strong protocols for safe monitoring activities.
Improved Performance: Enhances application insights and operational efficiency.
Operational Insights: Provides comprehensive logging and performance analysis.

Industries implementing Amazon CloudWatch often focus on optimizing IT infrastructure. Companies in sectors like finance and e-commerce rely on its monitoring and alerting capabilities to ensure service uptime and performance. The platform's automation and analytics features empower teams to proactively manage performance and detect potential issues promptly.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS Auto Scaling monitors your applications and automatically adjusts capacity to maintain steady, predictable performance at the lowest possible cost. Using AWS Auto Scaling, it’s easy to setup application scaling for multiple resources across multiple services in minutes. The service provides a simple, powerful user interface that lets you build scaling plans for resources including Amazon EC2 instances and Spot Fleets, Amazon ECS tasks, Amazon DynamoDB tables and indexes, and Amazon Aurora Replicas. AWS Auto Scaling makes scaling simple with recommendations that allow you to optimize performance, costs, or balance between them. If you’re already using Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling to dynamically scale your Amazon EC2 instances, you can now combine it with AWS Auto Scaling to scale additional resources for other AWS services. With AWS Auto Scaling, your applications always have the right resources at the right time.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Sample Customers

AirAsia, Airbnb, Aircel, APUS, Avazu, Casa & Video, Futbol Club Barcelona (FCBarcelona), National Taiwan University, redBus

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers

Buyer's Guide

AWS Auto Scaling vs. Amazon CloudWatch

December 2025

Free Report: AWS Auto Scaling vs. Amazon CloudWatch

Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Auto Scaling vs. Amazon CloudWatch and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our AWS Auto Scaling vs. Amazon CloudWatch report.

See our list of best Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability vendors.

We monitor all Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability 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.