Access to scalable, reliable compute power at a moment’s notice is one of the chief advantages of cloud services. But even tools that serve similar purposes can be suited for vastly different workloads.
Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and AWS Lambda can serve specific purposes, or businesses can architect the two together to construct more complex and effective cloud computing infrastructures for enterprise applications.
While both EC2 and Lambda are relatively straightforward to use, the varied offerings, differing use cases and operational nuances of both services can make proper selection confusing and challenging. Let’s compare Amazon EC2 vs. AWS Lambda and discover which best suits your business’s applications.
What is Amazon EC2?
Amazon EC2 is a cloud computing service that provides VMs called instances. AWS users can select an instance with a desired amount of computing resources, such as the number and type of CPUs, memory and local storage.
EC2 VM instances are generally intended for consistent, long-term operations that can last weeks to years. Core benefits of EC2 VM instances include the following:
Easy migrations. Available tools enable local workloads operating in traditional VMs to migrate to suitable Amazon EC2 instances.
Variety. With over 850 instance types to choose from, there is an efficient and cost-effective EC2 instance for almost any workload type or resource demand.
Security. Security features include 256-bit memory encryption and a VPC to help protect workloads and data.
Reliability. EC2 instances tout 99.9% availability and can support high availability architectural configurations for critical workloads.
Learn more about EC2 instance family types.
What is AWS Lambda?
AWS Lambda is an event-based service that delivers short-term compute capability. It runs code without the need to deploy, use or manage VM instances. An organization could use it to address specific triggers or events, such as database updates, storage changes or custom events, like alerts, generated from other applications.
Core benefits of AWS Lambda include the following:
No servers. Users need not enable, configure, operate or pay for long-term server use, as Lambda uses servers in the background.
Scaling. Lambda enables support for heavy enterprise workloads by servicing significant event volumes.
Opportunities. Developers and cloud architects can adopt new architectural design strategies for enterprise application development and deployment.
Integration. Lambda can integrate with services such as mailing services, logs and IoT devices in real time to streamline and consolidate functionality.
Find out how these two services compare.
Management
With EC2, users have complete control over the choice and configuration of Oses, network settings, drivers and other supporting software. Users take full responsibility for infrastructure and application management, including capacity planning, provisioning, application health and performance, fault tolerance and scalability. AWS continues to support and operate the cloud infrastructure and services.
With Lambda, AWS handles back-end provisioning, loading, execution, scaling and unloading the user’s code. This effectively relieves users of all operational infrastructure concerns. Users cannot access or manage the Lambda infrastructure.
Because the concept of serverless computing is fundamentally inconsistent with traditional software designs, organizations generally use Lambda in major software redesigns or for new, highly scalable cloud-native software architectures, such as microservices and other distributed applications. These architectures can embrace such function-as-a-service concepts in the code’s foundation.
Performance and availability
Amazon EC2 and AWS Lambda tout solid performance and availability, but there are several important differences to consider.
Amazon EC2 performance
EC2 is a VM service that hosts relatively long-lived computing workloads with predictable and steady traffic without regard for real-world or triggered events. EC2 instances can take time to load yet perform steadily once the load completes. You can scale EC2 deployments by adding more EC2 instances, but know that scaling must be implemented with care.
AWS Lambda performance
Lambda provides a short-term, ephemeral computing service that relies on real-world events to execute the given task. Consequently, the load time is almost instant, and Lambda can readily scale with high degrees of automation when additional calls or events occur.
Regarding security, the most striking difference between these two services is responsibility.
Security
Regarding security, the most striking difference between these two services is responsibility. Users might consider Lambda more secure than EC2, but that’s primarily because Lambda functions have a smaller attack surface. However, EC2 services provide far greater user control over security features and capabilities.
Amazon EC2 security features
Access control lists. Use ACLs to manage and restrict traffic.
Security groups. Establish security groups to manage traffic.
VPCs. Set up VPC subnet routing tables to hide and restrict traffic.
Runtime auditing. Guard against possible risks with continuous overview and auditing of runtime environments.
AWS Lambda security features
Identity and access management. Enable IAM policies to define how users access Lambda and interoperate with other AWS services.
Encryption. Implement encryption between Lambda functions and other services.
Software updates. Enforce security through AWS code updates and patches inaccessible to users.
Short-lived. Lambda functions are small and short-lived, and they present fewer opportunities for long-term or malicious attacks.
Pricing
EC2 pricing follows a pay-per-use model, and specific pricing depends on the instance type. Instances consume consistent resources and impose a regular cost, regardless of how much a workload runs.
There are seven options to pay for EC2 instances:
On-Demand Instances. A pay-as-you-go model, paid by the second, with no long-term commitment.
Spot Instances. Unused EC2 capacity at a lower rate than on-demand pricing.
Savings Plans. Commitment of usage for a one- or three-year period at a discount.
Reserved Instances. A capacity reservation for a one- or three-year commitment at a discount.
Dedicated Hosts. Eligible software licenses, including those from Microsoft and Oracle, to pay for a dedicated EC2 server.
Dedicated Instances. Similar to on-demand instances but paid by the hour and for instances that run on single-tenant hardware.
Capacity Reservations. A capacity reservation for instances in a specific Availability Zone.
Unlike EC2, Lambda charges only for active compute time and the number of requests made. The cost of Lambda compute time represents measurable work from the service — execution to termination. When the code is not running, there is no cost to the customer.
For both services, users can estimate their costs through the AWS pricing calculator. The calculator offers a convenient means of estimating costs and enables simple evaluations of cost fluctuations with different AWS services and configurations.
Common use cases
Given the aforementioned differences between these two services, let’s explore the scenarios these tools best handle.
Amazon EC2 use cases
EC2 is often the choice for straightforward application architectures or when migrating traditional monolithic applications from a local data center to the cloud. EC2 instances are generally intended for consistent, long-term operations that typically last from weeks to years, for example:
Workload hosting. Provides traditional VMs that host varied software applications in the cloud.
Software development. Offers easy-to-set-up, temporary environments for software development and testing.
System backup. Can host duplicate workloads for quick deployment during workload backups or disaster recovery.
High-performance computing (HPC). Provides high-end EC2 instances that are well suited for demanding enterprise applications and HPC workloads.
AWS Lambda use cases
Lambda functions exist and run until they complete an associated task. These functions best handle specific responses to events that are short term and easily defined, such as generating a report. A Lambda function might only operate for a few seconds in response to a trigger event. Here are some example use cases:
Ease of use. Simplifies common back-end tasks, such as processing S3 objects or file conversions.
Automation. Automates cloud workloads, such as creating and running websites or processing bulk data.
Support. Operates routine tasks, such as creating and testing backups and other infrastructure support.
Integration. Readily integrates with other AWS services and external APIs to streamline data access and processing.
Stephen J. Bigelow, senior technology editor at TechTarget, has more than 30 years of technical writing experience in the PC and technology industry.
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