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Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling vs Spot comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 8, 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
8.2
Number of Reviews
46
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Spot
Ranking in Compute Service
9th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (28th), Server Virtualization Software (14th), Cloud Operations Analytics (3rd), Cloud Analytics (3rd), Containers as a Service (CaaS) (6th), Cloud Cost Management (7th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is 10.5%, down from 13.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Spot is 1.2%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

Erick  Karanja - PeerSpot reviewer
Scaling is as easy as hitting a button and setup is straightforward
AWS has already made improvements. In the past, if you provisioned a large EC2 instance and underutilized it, you still paid a premium. Now, AWS encourages using Kubernetes, where you primarily pay for the compute power you actually use in production. 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. AWS has left it to engineers to figure out solutions. If you find the cost too high, you can move to Kubernetes, which might be a better solution for you than large EC2 instances. So, the improvements need to come from the user side, not the provider. Software engineers and engineering teams need to know their limits with EC2 instances. They need to recognize when it's time to transition their applications to Kubernetes. This means building with the cloud in mind from the start, making it easier to move solutions to the cloud without suffering upgrades and integration issues.
Manpreet_Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Used to manage Kubernetes infrastructure, but it doesn't have support from OCI
Spot Ocean is deployed on the cloud in our organization. I would recommend the solution to other users. You need to have an experience with Kubernetes, or else this product is of no use. It is not difficult to learn to use Spot Ocean. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The monitoring tool is helpful."
"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."
"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."
"It's good performance-wise."
"Sometimes, Auto Scaling is more beneficial, and sometimes, Reserved Instances are preferred, especially for longer-term usage."
"The solution is highly scalable."
"It uses features like target tracking scaling policy, which automatically maintains CPU utilization levels."
"The solution offers both block access and file access, making it a nice solution for customers."
"The solution helps us to manage and scale automatically whenever there is a limit to the increase in the application workflow."
 

Cons

"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 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."
"The tool must provide proper guidelines to troubleshoot connectivity issues."
"The pricing could be reduced."
"The product does not explain why a particular instance is terminated."
"EC2 is doing what it is intended to do, and I have no specific improvements to suggest."
"The primary area for improvement is the pricing model."
"The documentation for this solution could be improved. For example, it is difficult to find documentation for integration with applications."
"There are no particular areas for improvement I can identify."
"The solution doesn't have support from OCI, and it should start working to onboard OCI."
 

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 solution is not expensive."
"The product is quite expensive."
"The product's pricing depends on the traffic and workload."
"The pricing is not fixed and it is based on usage."
"The product is cheap."
"Amazon EC2 instances can be very expensive."
"When we want to use more services, we need to pay more. It's a monthly subscription, rather than licensed-based. Pricing or fees for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling could be improved."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
27%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
7%
Real Estate/Law Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
25%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 Spot Ocean?
The solution helps us to manage and scale automatically whenever there is a limit to the increase in the application workflow.
What needs improvement with Spot Ocean?
There are no particular areas for improvement I can identify.
What is your primary use case for Spot Ocean?
Spot by NetApp is primarily used for backup and also for Fiservware.
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

AWS RAM
Spot Ocean, Spot Elastigroup, Spot Eco
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Freshworks, Zalando, Red Spark, News, Trax, ETAS, Demandbase, BeesWa, Duolingo, intel, IBM, N26, Wix, EyeEm, moovit, SAMSUNG, News UK, ticketmaster
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling vs. Spot and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.