AWS Lambda vs Amazon EC2 comparison

Amazon EC2 and AWS Lambda are both solutions in the Compute Service category. Amazon EC2 is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.8, while AWS Lambda is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.5. Amazon EC2 holds a 6.0% mindshare in CS, compared to AWS Lambda’s 21.0% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Amazon EC2 users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of AWS Lambda users who would recommend it.

Amazon EC2

Read 65 Amazon EC2 reviews

1,301 Views
879 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

AWS Lambda

Read 83 AWS Lambda reviews

5,344 Views
2,884 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Amazon EC2

AWS Lambda

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Amazon EC2 and AWS Lambda based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Compute Service solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

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

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lambda vs. Amazon EC2

January 2025

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Helped 841,004 peers since 2012

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

5th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

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 is 6.0%, down from 7.1% 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

KatlegoMabila

Senior AWS Account Manager at Silicon Overdrive

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.

Read full review

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The scalability and elasticity are helpful."

"Stable, scalable, and simple to implement."

"EC2 has the typical advantages of using the cloud. It's easy to provision and set up."

"The setup is straightforward and it takes around an hour."

"The Key Management Service (KMS) feature is very helpful for security. It encrypts the data that is being saved. Cloud storage is also very helpful, and it could be AWS S3, which a lot of people use."

"The most valuable feature of Amazon EC2 is the computing capacity."

"Amazon EC2 has plenty of scalability options to decrease or increase the number we need. Based on our bandwidth usage we may go for a higher or downgrade level. We can do it ourselves."

"Its ease of use is valuable."

More Amazon EC2 pros

"AWS Lambda is a stable solution."

"The support from AWS Lambda is very good, they are responsive."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the API Gateway."

"The most valuable feature is that there is no need to implement it in a server because it is a service."

"It is a scalable solution."

"The main features of this solution are the ability to integrate multiple AWS applications or external applications very quickly and organize all of them. Additionally, it is easy to use and you can run various programming languages, such as Python, Go, and Java."

"AWS Lambda's event-driven architecture is highly valuable."

"I can use the solution to configure and set up all the requirements for testing the application and test code."

More AWS Lambda pros

Cons

"The solution is pretty expensive."

"The ease of migrating applications could be improved."

"EC2 could be improved with easier migration."

"The process of detaching EC2 instances to avoid billing could be less complex."

"One of the things that need to be looked into is the complex pricing, which is rather intense."

"The only issue with EC2 is that it makes it difficult to install an LLS certificate on your WordPress website that you have deployed inside that virtual machine. That becomes complicated."

"We found Amazon EC2 to be pricey."

"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."

More Amazon EC2 cons

"Lamba functions have cold-starts that can cause some delay."

"Another challenge I've noticed is that there is a limit to the environment variables such as the 4 KB limit. Although, the advice is to use parameters or other things to store the details when the limit has exceeded the data, this adds additional intensity to the application. If the size limits for environment variables can be revealed, it would be helpful. Even if we have to pay for it, at least we would know that we are not dealing with latency. So, I would like to see the size of the environment variables increased."

"I would like to see some better integration with other providers, like Cohesity, Druva, and others. I also think the Lambda interface could be better."

"Its performance can be improved. There should also be more dynamic security permissions."

"The feature to attach external storage, such as an S3 or elastic storage, must be added to AWS Lambda. This is its area for improvement."

"The security needs to be improved."

"It currently requires manual user maintenance to upgrade and evaluate, and an automated provision for this would be beneficial."

"The runtime for the solution can be improved."

More AWS Lambda cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You pay as you use it."

"When we did the deployment of Amazon EC2 we found it to be less expensive than other solutions."

"The price is reasonable, but there is definitely an opportunity to lower it in instances which are of a higher configuration, because they have been typically used for the long term."

"The licensing of Amazon EC2 is expensive. Microsoft Windows Servers are expensive to license."

"I am using the tier three Amazon service. I am not going to use another solution other than Amazon EC2 because here in Pakistan there are some payment issues for solutions abroad."

"The clients have found the billing of Amazon EC2 good, but the price could be less high. There is a monthly subscription to use the solution."

"The tool's pricing is not cheap."

"Amazon EC2 is a very expensive solution."

More Amazon EC2 pricing and cost advice

"The price of the solution is reasonable and it is a pay-per-use model. It is very good for cost optimization."

"We only need to pay for the compute time our code consumes."

"You're not paying for a server if you're not using it, which is another reason I like it. So, you're not paying if you're not using it. It scales, and you're charged based on usage. It all depends on the use case. Some can be extremely inexpensive if you have very low volume transaction rates. That way, you don't have to fire up and absorb the cost of the servers just sitting there waiting for a transaction to come through. You're only paying when you use it. So, depending upon the use model, Lambda could be highly efficient relative to an EC2 solution. You don't have to have things reallocated."

"AWS Lambda is a very inexpensive solution. They charge for the number of times we run it. If you run AWS Lambda for one time, they charge around 50 cents or 25 cents for the use. I don't know the exact price, but it's less than a dollar."

"The solution is free of cost for the first year, and after that, it becomes expensive."

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

"The price of the solution is reasonable."

"For licensing, we pay a yearly subscription."

More AWS Lambda pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Retailer

University

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?

The scalability and elasticity are helpful.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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

AWS Fargate vs Amazon EC2

Compared 43% of the time

AWS Batch vs Amazon EC2

Compared 25% of the time

Apache Spark vs Amazon EC2

Compared 14% of the time

More Amazon EC2 Competitors

AWS Batch vs AWS Lambda

Compared 53% of the time

Apache NiFi vs AWS Lambda

Compared 15% of the time

Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling vs AWS Lambda

Compared 10% of the time

Apache Spark vs AWS Lambda

Compared 10% of the time

AWS Fargate vs AWS Lambda

Compared 3% of the time

More AWS Lambda Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Amazon EC2

March 2025

Download Amazon EC2 product report

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lambda

March 2025

Download AWS Lambda 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)

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

Netflix, Expedia, TimeInc., Novaris, airbnb, Lamborghini

Netflix

Buyer's Guide

AWS Lambda vs. Amazon EC2

January 2025

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