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๐ŸณAmazon ECS vs AWS Fargate๐Ÿšข

These two are not rivals so much as layers: ECS is the orchestrator, while Fargate is a serverless compute engine ECS can run tasks on instead of EC2.

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๐ŸณAmazon ECS
  • โœ“Full control over the underlying EC2 instances
  • โœ“Often cheaper for steady, predictable workloads
  • โœ“Fine-grained tuning of instance types and placement
  • โœ“Reuse reserved or spot instances for savings
๐ŸšขAWS Fargate
  • โœ“No servers to patch, scale or manage
  • โœ“Pay only for the vCPU and memory tasks use
  • โœ“Faster to launch with far less operational overhead
  • โœ“Scales tasks up and down automatically

Verdict

Run ECS on EC2 for steady workloads where you want cost control and tuning. Run ECS on Fargate when you want serverless simplicity and no infrastructure to babysit.

Frequently asked

Is ECS different from Fargate?+

Yes, ECS is the orchestrator; Fargate is one compute option ECS uses instead of EC2.

Which is cheaper?+

EC2-backed ECS is usually cheaper for steady loads; Fargate wins on bursty or unpredictable usage.

Do I still configure ECS with Fargate?+

Yes, you define ECS task definitions and services either way; Fargate just removes server management.

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