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AWS Lambda vs Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling comparison

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and AWS Lambda are both solutions in the Compute Service category. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is ranked #5 with an average rating of 9.0, while AWS Lambda is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.7. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling holds a 9.3% mindshare in CS, compared to AWS Lambda’s 18.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of AWS Lambda users who would recommend it.
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
Read 49 Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling reviews
  • 1,079 Views
  • 1,079 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
AWS Lambda
Read 89 AWS Lambda reviews
  • 2,057 Views
  • 1,872 Comparison Views
94% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

AWS Lambda and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling compete in the cloud computing space, providing scalable solutions for running applications. AWS Lambda appears to have an edge with its serverless architecture and cost-efficiency for variable workloads, while Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling excels in scenarios requiring persistent transactions and high availability.

Features: AWS Lambda offers a serverless architecture with automatic scaling, event-driven execution, and seamless integration with AWS services. It supports various programming languages and utilizes a pay-as-you-go pricing model, making it cost-efficient and easy to maintain. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling provides dynamic control over server instances with features like load balancing and auto-scaling based on demand, ensuring high availability and ideal performance for applications needing persistent transactions.

Room for Improvement: AWS Lambda could improve in cold-start delays, expanding programming language support, and better integration with external services. Enhancements in security and troubleshooting would also be beneficial. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling could improve pricing transparency, documentation, and security features, as well as offering better support for instances that do not start as expected.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS Lambda is noted for its ease of deployment on public clouds and minimal infrastructure needs, with efficient scaling and comprehensive documentation. Users sometimes find the initial setup complex without detailed guides. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is praised for its integration in hybrid cloud environments. Both products are supported by Amazon's customer service, with Lambda receiving slightly more positive feedback.

Pricing and ROI: AWS Lambda offers a cost-effective pay-as-you-go pricing model, beneficial for applications with variable activity levels, resulting in positive ROI due to low operational costs. While Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling also follows a pay-as-you-go model, it may incur higher costs if instances are not managed effectively, though it remains cost-efficient for workloads needing constant availability, with a positive ROI through efficient resource management.

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Buyer's Guide
AWS Lambda vs. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
July 2025
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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
6.4
Organizations saved resources and infrastructure costs with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, achieving over 50% ROI in high-load applications.
Sentiment score
7.4
AWS Lambda offers high ROI with low costs, automatic scaling, and pay-as-you-go pricing, enhancing development focus.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.2
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is praised for its responsive support, though third-party integration challenges suggest vendor collaboration improvements.
Sentiment score
7.1
AWS Lambda support receives mixed reviews, praised for enterprise plans but critiqued for response times and personalized cost concerns.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling offers flexible, scalable solutions, efficiently managing resources to meet varied demands and simplifying operations.
Sentiment score
7.8
AWS Lambda efficiently scales with traffic, integrates well with AWS, but may raise cost concerns at high volumes.
The scaling feature appears to be embedded in the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling price.
For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling report
I would rate how scalable AWS Lambda is a nine on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 would be the lowest and 10 would be the highest level of scalability.
For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Lambda report
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is stable and reliable, with efficient scaling and minor regional issues, but SLAs need examination.
Sentiment score
8.1
AWS Lambda offers stable, reliable performance with high availability, despite occasional latency issues, suitable for mission-critical applications.
The stability of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling rates a 10.
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling should automatically scale out systems during high demand and scale in new instances when demand decreases.
For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling report
No quotes available
For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Lambda report
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling struggles with scalability, support, billing complexity, limited automation, connectivity issues, and inadequate training materials.
AWS Lambda requires improved integration, language support, performance, scalability, user-friendliness, and competitive pricing for enhanced third-party interoperability.
In enterprise environments such as healthcare or banking with numerous instances running different applications, customizable policies allow appropriate scaling.
Amazon should provide more detailed training materials for people who are just starting to work with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling.
The ability to ask questions about documentation through a chat interface would be valuable.
For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling report
No quotes available
For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Lambda report
Karthikeyan Ganesan - PeerSpot reviewer
MA
André Da Silva Santos - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Setup Cost

EC2 Auto Scaling offers pay-as-you-go pricing, where costs vary by usage and region, with competitors varying pricing.
AWS Lambda's pay-per-use pricing is cost-effective for small workloads, offering flexibility and savings over traditional servers.
It operates on a pay-as-you-go model, meaning if a machine is used for only an hour, the pricing will be calculated for that hour only, not the entire month.
In some projects, incorrect decisions were made by not consulting them first, resulting in higher setup and maintenance costs.
For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling report
No quotes available
For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Lambda report
 

Valuable Features

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling offers seamless scalability, automatic provisioning, integration, security, cost-efficiency, and flexible management for diverse business needs.
AWS Lambda offers serverless architecture, easy integration, auto-scaling, and cost-efficiency for developers prioritizing flexibility and quick deployments.
The service offers 99.9999% availability. We have high availability, and I haven't experienced any downtime during my usage periods.
This pre-configuration makes on-demand scaling refined, and the configuration includes automatic traffic distribution because when the first system is overloaded, new incoming traffic is redirected to the newly created systems.
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling has the capability to multiply itself, which enables it to handle peak loads effectively.
For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling report
No quotes available
For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Lambda report
André Da Silva Santos - PeerSpot reviewerKarthikeyan Ganesan - PeerSpot reviewer
MA
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
Ranking in Compute Service
5th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Lambda
Ranking in Compute Service
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is 9.3%, down from 13.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Lambda is 18.2%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
AWS Lambda18.2%
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling9.3%
Other72.5%
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

Karthikeyan Ganesan - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers automatic scaling features but can improve user interface and setup guidance
Customizable policies help us determine how scaling should occur. In enterprise environments such as healthcare or banking with numerous instances running different applications, customizable policies allow appropriate scaling. For critical servers, we can set up a higher number of new instances to scale out to prevent downtime. For less critical servers that perform simple tasks such as file copying, we can use customizable policies to scale out minimal instances to avoid unnecessary expenses or cloud costs. Regarding integration, there are some disadvantages in AWS where certain availability zones or regions experience glitches. This can cause production halts because of problems on Amazon's side. In particular regions, when integrating Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling or other services, there might be delays in creating new Amazon EC2 instances, sometimes becoming inefficient.
Read full review
Andrew-Wong - PeerSpot reviewer
Convenience in deployment process with room for code preview improvement
Having a better preview would be helpful. Sometimes, if my Lambda code is too big, it can be inconvenient as I'm unable to see my code when it exceeds a certain size. AWS has a limit, like a three-megabyte limit, beyond which I cannot view or edit the code easily.
Read full review
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
12%
Retailer
7%
University
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business35
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise42
 

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...
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?
The costing for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is equivalent to creating Amazon EC2 servers. For instance, if one dollar is paid for a single Amazon EC2 machine, the same cost applies for Amazon EC2 Auto ...
See all answers
What needs improvement with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?
Amazon should provide more detailed training materials for people who are just starting to work with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling. Documentation should be provided according to region. For example, in I...
See all answers
Which is better, AWS Lambda or Batch?
AWS Lambda is a serverless solution. It doesn’t require any infrastructure, which allows for cost savings. There is no setup process to deal with, as the entire solution is in the cloud. If you use...
See all answers
What do you like most about AWS Lambda?
The tool scales automatically based on the number of incoming requests.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Lambda?
The pricing of AWS Lambda is reasonable. It's beneficial and cost-effective for users regardless of the number of instances used.
See all answers
 

Comparisons

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AWS Fargate vs Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
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AWS Batch vs Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling Logo
AWS Batch vs Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
Compared 12% of the time
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AWS Batch vs AWS Lambda Logo
AWS Batch vs AWS Lambda
Compared 40% of the time
Apache NiFi vs AWS Lambda Logo
Apache NiFi vs AWS Lambda
Compared 19% of the time
Apache Spark vs AWS Lambda Logo
Apache Spark vs AWS Lambda
Compared 15% of the time
Amazon EC2 vs AWS Lambda Logo
Amazon EC2 vs AWS Lambda
Compared 10% of the time
Google Cloud Dataflow vs AWS Lambda Logo
Google Cloud Dataflow vs AWS Lambda
Compared 5% of the time
More AWS Lambda Competitors
 

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
September 2025
Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling reportDownload Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling product report
Buyer's Guide
AWS Lambda
September 2025
AWS Lambda reportDownload AWS Lambda product report
 

Also Known As

AWS RAM
No data available
 

Overview

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling helps you maintain application availability and allows you to automatically add or remove EC2 instances according to conditions you define. ... Dynamic scaling responds to changing demand and predictive scaling automatically schedules the right number of EC2 instances based on predicted demand.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS Lambda is a compute service that lets you run code without provisioning or managing servers. AWS Lambda executes your code only when needed and scales automatically, from a few requests per day to thousands per second. You pay only for the compute time you consume - there is no charge when your code is not running. With AWS Lambda, you can run code for virtually any type of application or backend service - all with zero administration. AWS Lambda runs your code on a high-availability compute infrastructure and performs all of the administration of the compute resources, including server and operating system maintenance, capacity provisioning and automatic scaling, code monitoring and logging. All you need to do is supply your code in one of the languages that AWS Lambda supports (currently Node.js, Java, C# and Python).

You can use AWS Lambda to run your code in response to events, such as changes to data in an Amazon S3 bucket or an Amazon DynamoDB table; to run your code in response to HTTP requests using Amazon API Gateway; or invoke your code using API calls made using AWS SDKs. With these capabilities, you can use Lambda to easily build data processing triggers for AWS services like Amazon S3 and Amazon DynamoDB process streaming data stored in Amazon Kinesis, or create your own back end that operates at AWS scale, performance, and security.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Netflix
Buyer's Guide
AWS Lambda vs. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling
July 2025
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