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AWS Lambda 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 Lambda
Ranking in Compute Service
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
88
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 Lambda is 21.2%, up from 20.5% 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…
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Service for launching or terminating Amazon EC2 instances, with good scalability and stability."
"The easy possibility to spin up runtimes according to the needs of the POC, getting a runtime up and running in an easy way, which is accessible over the internet, is valuable for our process."
"Sometimes, Auto Scaling is more beneficial, and sometimes, Reserved Instances are preferred, especially for longer-term usage."
"The solution incorporates ease of maintenance and reduction in operational overhead and costs. Patching is also easy."
"The integration capabilities are good."
"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 a cool-down time feature called the warmup start."
"The most valuable features include the availability of various services like compute, memory, and database services in the AWS landscape."
"We have no issues with the technical support."
"It is my preferred product, as it provides me with source code within the solution."
"Lambda is the preferred compute option because of on-demand cost. We don't have to provision any hardware beforehand. We don't have to provision the capacity required for the services because it is serverless."
"AWS Lambda is cost-effective, providing noticeable cost savings."
"The solution is designed very well. You don't need to keep a server up. You just need some router to route your API request and Lambda provides a very well-designed feature to process the request."
"The automation feature is valuable."
"The stability is good."
"AWS Lambda has improved our productivity and functionality."
 

Cons

"We have found that the sizing in Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is far off. For example, we will see some at one terabyte and the other one is two terabytes. There is nothing between one and two terabytes. Sometimes it's a struggle if I need one and a half, I still am supposed to pay for two. There are five terabytes, six terabytes, and 12 terabytes, and if I need something at eight or nine, I'm still paying 30 to 40 percent more by taking the one which is 12 terabytes. Microsoft Azure does similar sizes but the gap can be more, such as six terabytes, and the next one is 12 terabytes."
"There should be an AWS instance in South Africa, where the latency would be even lower. It might happen soon since AWS has recently opened more data centres in Nigeria. AWS may extend its reach to South Africa, and offer hosted CLI servers there. Most of the problems with AWS are not to do with the solution itself but with configuration. It is something on design, more or less."
"The spinning up in the solution can be much faster...The product should have a faster scalability option."
"The price could always be a bit better."
"Could integrate more with other platforms."
"There is room for improvement in the scalability."
"The solution could improve by having more automation. Nowadays there is a vast variety of automation. Additionally, infrastructure monitoring could improve."
"EC2 is doing what it is intended to do, and I have no specific improvements to suggest."
"Security needs to be improved."
"The 60 seconds limitation with the consumption of the service is really restrictive for a service and the solution can be improved by eliminating that."
"AWS Lambda has some size limitations in the code line, you can't do a couple of functions to do the job."
"Lambda has limitations on the amount of memory you can use and is not a good solution for long running processes."
"We don't have the inbuilt modules in AWS Lambda. If more modules were built into or integrated with AWS Lambda, that would help developers to code."
"AWS Lambda's GUI could be improved with a twist or tweak in its look and feel to make it more impressive."
"The feature to attach external storage, such as an S3 or elastic storage, must be added to AWS Lambda. This is its area for improvement."
"Lambda can only be used in one account; there's no possibility to utilize it in another account."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this product could be a little bit lower."
"Pricing could be a little bit more competitive."
"Its price is affordable for enterprise customers."
"The pricing is not fixed and it is based on usage."
"The product is quite expensive."
"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."
"AWS offered some credits, so we have been able to enjoy some of those benefits. The pricing was fair."
"The product is expensive."
"I would rate the tool’s pricing a nine out of ten. The solution’s pricing works on a pay-as-you-go basis."
"It computes by the cycle, and it's very cheap."
"The pricing is on-demand and based on runs or times that are billed out monthly."
"The cost is based on runtime."
"AWS Lambda's cloud version isn't expensive, and I'd rate its pricing as five out of five."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"This is a product that is pay-per-use, as opposed to a licensing fee."
"The price of the solution is reasonable and it is a pay-per-use model. It is very good for cost optimization."
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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%
Educational Organization
57%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
4%
 

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...
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...
What do you like most about AWS Lambda?
The tool scales automatically based on the number of incoming requests.
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.
 

Also Known As

AWS RAM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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