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AWS Lambda vs Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
AWS Lambda
Ranking in Compute Service
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
83
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is 11.2%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Lambda is 20.8%, down from 26.3% 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.
Wai L Lin O - PeerSpot reviewer
A serverless solution with easy integration features
We use AWS Lambda because it provides a solution for our needs without requiring us to manage our infrastructure. With the tool, we only pay for the resources we use. Additionally, it is straightforward to implement and integrates with other services like API Gateway. The tool's serverless nature has had the most significant impact on our workflow. I find it particularly attractive because it eliminates the need for managing servers. In my previous experience, managing upgrades and updates was quite challenging. The solution's integration process with other AWS services was relatively easy. We primarily use AWS services such as EventBridge for scheduling processes and log management.

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 initial setup is straightforward."
"The solution is scalable."
"The solution includes many features for configuring networks and VPCs."
"Auto-scaling is a good feature."
"Having a load balancer in between is very helpful when you have huge traffic."
"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."
"What we have found most valuable are the purchasing of usage at the time and small storage."
"I have found all of the features valuable. It's an easy and cheap solution."
"It's a serverless solution which is the best feature. It helps us because it offers free aspects. From the infrastructure perspective, it helps us manage costs. There is no overhead of estimating how much infrastructure we're going to need. We can focus on building the business functionality that we want to build."
"The ease and speed of developing the services using any available language is the most valuable feature."
"The solution integrates well with API gateways and S3 events via its AWS ecosystem."
"I like the pay-for-what-you-use feature. This is the main reason why we use AWS Lambda. I don't have to manage servers; I just have to configure Lambda and expose it to an API gateway."
"The solution offers good performance."
"Amazon takes care of the scalability. That's the right way. It's automatic and it's fully managed. That's one benefit of Lambda."
"We have no issues with the technical support."
 

Cons

"The pricing could be reduced."
"Scalability can be improved."
"I would like to see a feature included that has the capability to clone when an instance is being terminated."
"The documentation for this solution could be improved. For example, it is difficult to find documentation for integration with applications."
"The support to manage the processes could be better."
"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."
"Automation is very hard."
"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."
"Lambda can only be used in one account; there's no possibility to utilize it in another account."
"We need to better understand Lambda for different scenarios. We need some joint effort between Amazon and the users to have the users identify how they can really leverage Lambda. It's not about Lambda itself; it's about the practice, the guidance. There needs to be very good documentation. From the user perspective, what exists now is not always enough."
"I wish to see better execution time in the next release."
"If you are setting it up on hybrid solution, there is a lot of work that needs to go in."
"The support team does not know how to implement and build the solution."
"There were some timeout issues with AWS Lambda as the options provided didn't suit our business cases."
"I would like the layers to have a bigger volume. I would like to be able to add more. I don't want to be limited by the layer."
"I think that perhaps Lambda could explore its functionality more."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to the performance, the price is quite high. I would rate it a ten because it is expensive. There are additional costs including bandwidth costs, data transfer costs, and load balancing costs."
"The solution is less expensive than a few competitors."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"There is no specific pricing for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, but we have to pay for the number of machines getting scaled up."
"AWS offered some credits, so we have been able to enjoy some of those benefits. The pricing was fair."
"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."
"The tool's pricing is good and not expensive."
"I rate Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling's pricing a seven out of ten."
"The price is expensive and is based on usage. The more users you have the higher the cost."
"AWS Lambda's cloud version isn't expensive, and I'd rate its pricing as five out of five."
"The pricing is on-demand and based on runs or times that are billed out monthly."
"AWS Lambda is inexpensive."
"It costs maybe less than $10 per month in my use case."
"AWS is slightly more expensive than Azure."
"AWS Lambda is cheap."
"It computes by the cycle, and it's very cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
22%
Computer Software Company
16%
University
7%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
67%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
4%
Manufacturing Company
3%
 

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 structure from AWS is really complex and depends on factors like the region and specific services used. Prices can vary significantly even within the same service across different locat...
What needs improvement with Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling?
There is a need for improvement in understanding the pricing structure, as it is complex and depends on several factors such as the location of data centers.
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?
AWS Lambda is cheaper compared to running an instance continuously. You only pay for what you use, making it cost-effective.
 

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: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.