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Amazon EC2 vs Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Ranking in Compute Service
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
65
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Compute Service category, the mindshare of Amazon EC2 is 5.7%, down from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling is 10.8%, down from 12.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Compute Service
 

Featured Reviews

KatlegoMabila - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers customization and flexibility with great support
Scalability depends on whether the client wants to scale up or scale down. It decreases resources based on demand. The great aspect of scalability is the flexibility to allow business success to optimize resource solutions and cost efficiency. Another crucial aspect of scalability is auto-scaling. When you have the opportunity to auto-scale, it can't always be available for everything. If you have chosen to integrate with auto-scaling, it's marvellous and doesn't require additional effort. Auto-scaling gives you the edge by using the capacity you have efficiently, scaling up or down as needed. These flexibilities within the EC2 feature instances of AWS play a crucial role in helping me utilize AWS EC2 Intelligent efficiently.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of Amazon EC2 is the virtual machines that are available."
"The most valuable features of Amazon EC2 are ease of use and the services offered."
"I can quickly create a VM instance with just one click."
"EC2 has the typical advantages of using the cloud. It's easy to provision and set up."
"The product helps us with scalability. We also need not have data centers."
"The most valuable features of Amazon EC2 are content delivery and adaptability."
"Configuration can be changed at any time and it's very scalable."
"EC2 is secure and stable, and we have no complaints about it on AWS."
"The documentation is good."
"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."
"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."
"The integration capabilities are good."
"It's good performance-wise."
"It has the best auto-scaling features."
"The product’s most valuable feature is the seamless resizing of web connection."
"The monitoring tool is helpful."
 

Cons

"Amazon EC2 could improve by having integration with other cloud systems, such as Azure, and Google Cloud which would be good. Additionally, having integration with on-premise systems would be appreciated."
"An area for improvement in Amazon EC2 is the cost because it's a bit higher than competitor pricing."
"The price could be better, and it could be more affordable. Because I run my own servers, the prices are quite high."
"The solution’s pricing and downtimes could be improved."
"Current inability to change the resource service levels."
"If the solution was cheaper, if the price was less, it would be better."
"The solution is pretty expensive."
"Regional acceleration could improve. If I am hosting a website and I want the experience to be faster they should have this feature to allow for increased speeds."
"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."
"The spinning up in the solution can be much faster...The product should have a faster scalability option."
"It should work for the cloud, cloud monitoring features, and DevOps processes. It should automatically enable features for downscaling and upscaling."
"The product's technical support needs to be better."
"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."
"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."
"The solution's pricing is expensive. You pay based on how much you use it, like paying for the time or hours you use the service. There's no need to buy hardware separately."
"There is room for improvement in the scalability."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When we did the deployment of Amazon EC2 we found it to be less expensive than other solutions."
"It is not an expensive solution."
"The price of Amazon EC2 could improve. The Google Cloud Platform is more cost-effective."
"You pay as you use it."
"The price of Amazon EC2 could improve. The Google Cloud Platform is more cost-effective."
"The licensing of Amazon EC2 is expensive. Microsoft Windows Servers are expensive to license."
"We are paying about $1,500 a month for one of the services."
"It's expensive, and it could be cheaper."
"The solution is not expensive."
"There is no specific pricing for Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling, but we have to pay for the number of machines getting scaled up."
"I have not explored the price of the solution extensively, but from what I have seen the price is alright."
"The price of this product could be a little bit lower."
"The pricing is not fixed and it is based on usage."
"The solution is less expensive than a few competitors."
"AWS offered some credits, so we have been able to enjoy some of those benefits. The pricing was fair."
"The licences for this solution are based on the number of instances. This determines the EC2 type that is used and this is then priced accordingly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Retailer
6%
Financial Services Firm
25%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
8%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Amazon EC2?
The scalability and elasticity are helpful.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Amazon EC2?
I'm going to mention again that there is quite a bit of complexity within the pricing of EC2 instances. I'm just going to give it six out of ten since there are various standards, upfront and commi...
What needs improvement with Amazon EC2?
There is not much to be improved or enhanced. One of the things that need to be looked into is the complex pricing, which is rather intense. Sometimes, clients don't understand the structures. Thes...
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.
 

Also Known As

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud, EC2
AWS RAM
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Netflix, Expedia, TimeInc., Novaris, airbnb, Lamborghini
Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Find out what your peers are saying about Amazon EC2 vs. Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.