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AWS Fargate vs Amazon EC2 comparison

Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate are both solutions in the Compute Service category. Amazon EC2 is ranked #6 with an average rating of 9.1, while AWS Fargate is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.6. Amazon EC2 holds a 9.0% mindshare in CS, compared to AWS Fargate’s 11.9% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon EC2 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of AWS Fargate users who would recommend it.
Amazon EC2
Read 70 Amazon EC2 reviews
  • 1,214 Views
  • 1,105 Comparison Views
98% willing to recommend
AWS Fargate
Read 20 AWS Fargate reviews
  • 1,757 Views
  • 1,581 Comparison Views
100% willing to recommend
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate are cloud computing services offered by Amazon Web Services, each catering to distinct use cases. AWS Fargate appears to have the upper hand for its serverless operation and ease of management, while EC2 stands out with its pricing models and control.

Features: Amazon EC2 allows extensive customization with scalable instance options and strong security, suitable for users requiring precise control. It supports multiple operating systems and provides elastic scalability. On the other hand, AWS Fargate emphasizes its serverless nature and cost-efficient operations, which are ideal for dynamic workloads and reduce operational overhead by automatically managing compute resources.

Room for Improvement: Amazon EC2 could benefit from enhanced cost management strategies and simpler migration procedures. Users highlight the need for better integration and dashboard interface improvements. AWS Fargate could improve its monitoring capabilities and simplify its initial setup, with users expressing the need for smoother infrastructure integration and clearer cost predictability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both Amazon EC2 and AWS Fargate support public cloud deployment, with EC2 also offering private options. Users generally find EC2's documentation adequate but note certain support challenges. Fargate is noted for its consistent customer service, though technical assistance receives mixed reviews. Both services significantly rely on AWS documentation to address issues, with some users seeing room for improvement in integration support.

Pricing and ROI: Amazon EC2 offers varied pricing models like on-demand, reserved, and spot instances, providing good ROI by reducing infrastructure costs versus on-prem solutions. Its pricing complexity, however, can be a drawback. AWS Fargate’s serverless capabilities and pay-as-you-go model provide flexibility, though it may be more costly for smaller operations. Both services offer significant value; EC2 through detailed infrastructure control, and Fargate through simplified server management, aligning with different business needs.

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Buyer's Guide
AWS Fargate vs. Amazon EC2
September 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
Amazon EC2 offers cost savings, flexibility, and operational efficiency, outperforming traditional systems in financial and maintenance benefits.
Sentiment score
7.0
AWS Fargate enhances organizational efficiency and customer experience with cost-effective, scalable, serverless solutions, increasing operational capacity and reducing processing costs.
No quotes available
For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EC2 report
The pay-as-you-go pricing model of AWS Fargate was one of the major drivers for us to move there because we reduced costs while increasing the quality of the processing services by about 30%.
For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Fargate report
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.8
Amazon EC2 support receives mixed reviews; response times praised, but integration issues and premium package effectiveness vary among users.
Sentiment score
6.8
AWS Fargate offers highly rated support and documentation, with proactive engagement enhancing user experience for all customers.
No quotes available
For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EC2 report
Even though we didn't contract support, every two weeks I had a 30-minute meeting with a cloud architect from AWS to help our team use different products of AWS, especially with SageMaker for a forecasting algorithm we were developing.
For pro support, AWS charges additional fees.
For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Fargate report
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Amazon EC2 efficiently scales with robust features, offering flexibility, reliability, and minimal effort in handling diverse user needs.
Sentiment score
8.4
AWS Fargate efficiently handles demand fluctuations with dynamic scaling, maintaining high user satisfaction and scalability for containerized environments.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Amazon EC2 is praised for stability, reliability, easy scaling, and effective recovery, despite occasional latency or termination issues.
Sentiment score
8.2
AWS Fargate offers high stability and reliability, ideal for low-traffic applications, but may not suit large-scale traffic.
 

Room For Improvement

Amazon EC2 users seek improved AWS integration, cost reduction, better UI, enhanced support, Scalability, and Graviton instance availability.
AWS Fargate needs cost efficiency, easier setup, improved documentation, better monitoring, scaling, and UI enhancements for user-friendliness.
I have heard from multiple people that if you have an Amazon EC2 instance running and you stop it, the billing continues unless you terminate the Amazon EC2 instance.
For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EC2 report
AWS Fargate provides the power of containers and scalability without the complexity of going into Kubernetes.
AWS Fargate is pretty straightforward for simple tasks and it should remain this way; an additional feature would make it complex and possibly not so stable.
They need to improve some UI-based interaction.
For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Fargate report
Shakir Bhatt - PeerSpot reviewer
JG
Fedir Plotnikov - PeerSpot reviewerDeepak Nemade - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers appreciate Amazon EC2's competitive pricing but find it complex, unpredictable, and often expensive compared to competitors.
AWS Fargate offers flexible consumption-based pricing, valuable for enterprises, though costlier than alternatives, with discounts improving affordability.
 

Valuable Features

Amazon EC2 is valued for its scalability, reliability, ease of use, cost-effectiveness, flexibility, robust security, and performance.
AWS Fargate offers serverless, auto-scaling container deployment, boosting productivity and cost-efficiency by removing infrastructure management concerns.
Amazon EC2 offers flexibility.
For more quotes and insights, download the Amazon EC2 report
It's very fast in terms of scaling my containers; it's much faster than other solutions.
One of the best features of AWS Fargate is that it was useful for us because we didn't require to run container workloads and we didn't need to deal with the management of a Kubernetes cluster directly, and the ability to run those workloads just in a scheduled manner is also a great feature.
What I find best about AWS Fargate is that compared to deploying containers on EC2, where we need to check everything manually such as uptime, error logs, and other issues, AWS Fargate manages all these aspects automatically.
For more quotes and insights, download the AWS Fargate report
Shakir Bhatt - PeerSpot reviewerFedir Plotnikov - PeerSpot reviewer
JG
Deepak Nemade - PeerSpot reviewer
 

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EC2
Ranking in Compute Service
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Fargate
Ranking in Compute Service
2nd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 is 9.0%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Fargate is 11.9%, down from 17.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
AWS Fargate11.9%
Amazon EC29.0%
Other79.1%
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

Shakir Bhatt - PeerSpot reviewer
Flexibility empowers personalized management with minimal challenges
Initially, I was not sure how things were working. After I became familiar with it, I didn't feel any issues with Amazon EC2. However, one concern remains. I have heard from multiple people that if you have an Amazon EC2 instance running and you stop it, the billing continues unless you terminate the Amazon EC2 instance. This is an area where users should be prompted. I am not sure whether that information is currently available, but users might think billing stops when they stop their instance.
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Deepak Nemade - PeerSpot reviewer
Has reduced manual container monitoring and restarted services automatically while UI interactions still need attention
What I find best about AWS Fargate is that compared to deploying containers on EC2, where we need to check everything manually such as uptime, error logs, and other issues, AWS Fargate manages all these aspects automatically. If a container goes down, it automatically restarts it, and according to our requirements, it handles scaling up and down of all containers. This feature is really amazing.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Transportation Company
8%
Government
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise7
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EC2?
The scalability and elasticity are helpful.
See all answers
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EC2?
Advice on Setup Cost, Pricing, and Licensing for EC2: 1. Start Small & Use Free Tier if Possible For new users or small applications, the AWS Free Tier offers limited EC2 usage free for 12 mont...
See all answers
What needs improvement with Amazon EC2?
There are some specific features, such as ML features and AI features, that I would to see included in the next releases of Amazon EC2. Additionally, there is functionality available in Databricks ...
See all answers
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...
See all answers
What needs improvement with AWS Fargate?
They need to improve some UI-based interaction.
See all answers
What advice do you have for others considering AWS Fargate?
Using AWS Fargate is becoming easier as the platform improves. On a scale of 1-10, I rate AWS Fargate a 7.
See all answers
 

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Compared 30% of the time
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Compared 20% of the time
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Compared 11% of the time
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Compared 7% of the time
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Compared 6% of the time
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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide
Amazon EC2
October 2025
Amazon EC2 reportDownload Amazon EC2 product report
Buyer's Guide
AWS Fargate
October 2025
AWS Fargate reportDownload AWS Fargate product report
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, EC2
No data available
 

Overview

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) is a web service that provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It is designed to make web-scale cloud computing easier for developers.

Amazon EC2’s simple web service interface allows you to obtain and configure capacity with minimal friction. It provides you with complete control of your computing resources and lets you run on Amazon’s proven computing environment. Amazon EC2 reduces the time required to obtain and boot new server instances to minutes, allowing you to quickly scale capacity, both up and down, as your computing requirements change. Amazon EC2 changes the economics of computing by allowing you to pay only for capacity that you actually use. Amazon EC2 provides developers the tools to build failure resilient applications and isolate them from common failure scenarios.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

A new compute engine that enables you to use containers as a fundamental compute primitive without having to manage the underlying instances. With Fargate, you don’t need to provision, configure, or scale virtual machines in your clusters to run containers. Fargate can be used with Amazon ECS today, with plans to support Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (Amazon EKS) in the future.

Fargate has flexible configuration options so you can closely match your application needs and granular, per-second billing.

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Expedia, TimeInc., Novaris, airbnb, Lamborghini
Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Buyer's Guide
AWS Fargate vs. Amazon EC2
September 2025
Free Report: AWS Fargate vs. Amazon EC2
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