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AWS Fargate vs Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
Ranking in Compute Service
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Fargate
Ranking in Compute Service
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is 10.4%, down from 13.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Fargate is 14.0%, down from 18.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

Muhammad Awais Zahid - PeerSpot reviewer
Pay-as-you-go and efficient with automated workload handling
I have been working with customers who use Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling for handling their workload on servers and scaling up the infrastructure as required.  As an instructor and cloud consultant, I help clients maintain and scale their infrastructure using this service to achieve zero downtime…
Subrata Mukherjee - PeerSpot reviewer
Boost demand response with cost-efficient serverless architecture
We are a venture builder company, and if we select AWS for our product. Our design is based on a serverless architecture model. ECS Fargate is the most convenient way in terms of scalability, integration, and cost control Thanks to the serverless model and easy integration features, a few…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We appreciate that this solution allows us to run all of our severs through it, meaning that our workloads are mainly on the EC2 instance only."
"I like the fact that you don't need to pay for it when you aren't using it, especially in a disaster recovery scenario. The pricing is transparent, so you know what you're going to pay for it."
"The auto-scaling feature is particularly useful. Additionally, CloudWatch and CloudTrail are also important features for us."
"The tool helps me to process large data sets while scaling up."
"One of the most important benefits is that a company can optimize resources because Auto Scaling deploys resources when needed. For example, for Black Friday, a company can deploy 100 servers for a couple of days. When Black Friday is over, the company can delete those servers."
"Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling has good integration."
"Having a load balancer in between is very helpful when you have huge traffic."
"The product’s most valuable feature is the seamless resizing of web connection."
"AWS Fargate has definitely impacted our organization positively because before that, we couldn't accommodate the workload requirements as flexibly as we can with Fargate."
"AWS Fargate is a fully managed service, and it's very easy to use compared to other services like Elastic Beanstalk Service (EBS)."
"It allows for focusing on applications instead of managing infrastructure."
"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."
"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."
"AWS Fargate automatically scales to meet demand, making it ideal for applications with variable workloads."
"All AWS services allow me to manage a wide range of applications and services."
 

Cons

"The launch configuration feature doesn't work properly. It needs to improve the load configuration feature along with launch templates. The tool needs to tag feature as well."
"There is room for improvement. You might end up paying a high price if you're not careful and you provision a server that's underutilized."
"Automation is very hard."
"Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling could improve by adding better integration features with the other services. Additionally, if the alarms could be triggered from other services this would be beneficial."
"The support to manage the processes could be better."
"There is room for improvement in the pricing model."
"The documentation for this solution could be improved. For example, it is difficult to find documentation for integration with applications."
"The spinning up in the solution can be much faster...The product should have a faster scalability option."
"AWS Fargate needs improvement in terms of setup complexity."
"There is a tool named Compose that helps in converting the Docker Compose file into a Kubernetes file. For ECS and Fargate, AWS reads a Dockerfile and helps with conversion. However, I am uncertain if it's ready for deployment after conversion."
"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."
"There are features that could be added or enhanced."
"As I have not worked with Fargate extensively, I do not have any specific improvements."
"Service computing is not as straightforward compared to other computing services. It requires more effort to use effectively."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's licensing is based on a pay-as-you-go model. You only pay for the resources you use, whether it's RAM, processing power, or storage. So, it's calculated based on the time you use those resources, typically billed in hours or minutes."
"The licences for this solution are based on the number of instances. This determines the EC2 type that is used and this is then priced accordingly."
"Pricing could be a little bit more competitive."
"The product is expensive."
"The product's pricing depends on the traffic and workload."
"The solution is less expensive than a few competitors."
"Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model."
"Its price is affordable for enterprise customers."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
26%
Computer Software Company
14%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?
The solution removes the need for hardware. We can easily create servers or machines. Just by clicking or specifying our requirements, like memory size or disk space, it's set up for us. The tool e...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?
The pricing of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is moderate. It's not too expensive because we only pay for what we use. While there are cheaper options, the services provided are worth the cost. Previously...
What needs improvement with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?
While Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is continually updated and has improved over time, the dashboard has become more complex and tricky for new users. The interface was easier to navigate in earlier vers...
What do you like most about AWS Fargate?
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 p...
What needs improvement with AWS Fargate?
The monitoring capabilities of AWS Fargate could be improved and made more robust. The error handling aspect sometimes causes issues and can get stuck during deployment, making the process not very...
What advice do you have for others considering AWS Fargate?
I would recommend AWS Fargate as an alternative to AWS Lambda for running loads or hosting a service. It is a good service for keeping instances running, which minimizes initial latency. Overall, I...
 

Also Known As

AWS RAM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Fargate vs. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.