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 #3 with an average rating of 8.8, while AWS Lambda is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling holds a 11.2% mindshare in CS, compared to AWS Lambda’s 21.0% 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 44 Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling reviews

1,768 Views
1,531 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

AWS Lambda

Read 83 AWS Lambda reviews

5,344 Views
2,884 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

AWS Lambda

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

AWS Lambda and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling both compete in the cloud computing category, with Lambda having the upper hand for users seeking serverless solutions, while EC2 is preferred for those requiring robust infrastructure management.

Features: AWS Lambda offers a serverless architecture, cost-efficient scaling, and robust integration capabilities, enabling quick deployments and flexibility in language support. It is ideal for automated, event-driven tasks without infrastructure management concerns. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling provides infrastructure as a service with significant control over deployment, load balancers integration, and elasticity, allowing resources to adjust based on demand, making it stable for traditional applications.

Room for Improvement: AWS Lambda could improve cold start latency, extend execution time limits beyond 15 minutes, and enhance integration with external providers and language support. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling needs enhancements in cost-efficiency, user interface, and integration capabilities, as users find the pricing model complex.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: AWS Lambda is praised for its ease of use and minimal setup, suitable for users with various technical backgrounds, while receiving generally strong customer support. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, though requiring more initial setup, offers greater control over deployment. Its technical support receives mixed reviews.

Pricing and ROI: AWS Lambda employs a pay-as-you-go model without upfront infrastructure costs, presenting cost efficiency for projects with fluctuating demands. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling’s usage-based pricing can potentially be expensive if not managed well, yet provides significant ROI for businesses needing stable, scalable infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed AWS Lambda vs. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lambda vs. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

January 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:

Categories and Ranking

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

Ranking in Compute Service

3rd

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

8.2

Number of Reviews

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

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is 11.2%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of AWS Lambda is 21.0%, down from 24.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Compute Service

Featured Reviews

Erick Karanja

Technical Lead at Cellulant Kenya

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.

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Wai L Lin O

Cloud Engineer - Supervisor at KBZ Bank

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Auto-scaling is a good feature."

"The most valuable features include the availability of various services like compute, memory, and database services in the AWS landscape."

"The tool is a simple solution. You can deploy a new virtual machine in minutes. You can select options like memory and core number and connect storage. It's great because it's simple and fast. You can build a virtual machine in minutes, do your experiments, and then uninstall it without paying for it when it's not in use."

"Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling has good integration."

"We use the solution to increase CPU and memory size."

"The product is flexible."

"The initial setup of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is easy...Since we are an enterprise-sized company and a client of Amazon, the response from the technical support team was immediate."

"The feature I found most valuable was the vertical and horizontal scaling."

More Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling pros

"It is a scalable solution."

"The most valuable feature of AWS Lambda is that you can trigger and run jobs instantly, and after you complete the job, that function is either destroyed or stopped automatedly."

"Technical support has been great in general."

"AWS Lambda's most valuable feature is serverless architecture."

"The most valuable features are event-based triggers. They're really good for a reactive style when you want things to happen as soon as something else happens."

"Some of the most valuable features are that it's easy to install and use. The performance is also good."

"Lambda being serverless is a great feature that is appropriate for our use cases."

"They have the built-in IDE, so everything happens without integration issues."

More AWS Lambda pros

Cons

"Could integrate more with other platforms."

"The support to manage the processes could be better."

"Its stability and scalability need improvement."

"The spinning up in the solution can be much faster...The product should have a faster scalability option."

"The product should improve vertical scaling features."

"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."

"As we are transitioning to managing containerized applications, the solution could improve by adding more managed container services as a feature in the solution."

"Scalability can be improved."

More Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling cons

"There are other similar solutions, such as Google Cloud Platform or Microsoft Azure. They might be better for small tasks."

"AWS Lambda could be improved by increasing the size of the payload. Also, sometimes Lambda doesn't implement well for bigger solutions."

"I would like to see improvements in AWS Lambda's stability and setup processes, as there were some complexities encountered initially."

"One area of improvement is to include support for more programming languages. AWS Lambda does not support a lot of programming languages. You have to write the Lambda functions in a certain programming language. We are using C++. My developer knows a couple of other languages. Python is his favorite language, but Python is not supported in AWS Lambda."

"The price in general could always be better."

"I would like to see more integration with other platforms."

"The metrics and reporting for this solution could be improved."

"It would be ideal if we could use the solution across different platforms."

More AWS Lambda cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is no specific pricing for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, but we have to pay for the number of machines getting scaled up."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"The product is expensive."

"The solution is less expensive than a few competitors."

"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."

"I have not explored the price of the solution extensively, but from what I have seen the price is alright."

"Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model."

"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."

More Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling pricing and cost advice

"AWS is slightly more expensive than Azure."

"Lambda is a good and cheap solution and I would recommend it to those without a huge payload."

"For licensing, we pay a yearly subscription."

"We don't need to pay for licensing to use Lambda."

"AWS Lambda is not expensive for micro testing but is expensive if used for long deployment or long services."

"AWS Lambda is inexpensive."

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"AWS Lambda cost is pretty decent."

More AWS Lambda pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

23%

Computer Software Company

15%

University

Government

Educational Organization

68%

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

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...

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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?

AWS Lambda is cheaper compared to running an instance continuously. You only pay for what you use, making it cost-effective.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 8% of the time

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Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling

March 2025

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Buyer's Guide

AWS Lambda

March 2025

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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

January 2025

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