Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Amazon CloudWatch VS AWS Config

Compare Amazon CloudWatch VS AWS Config and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Amazon CloudWatch logo Amazon CloudWatch

Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring service for AWS cloud resources and the applications you run on AWS.

AWS Config logo AWS Config

Cloud Monitoring
  • Amazon CloudWatch Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-26
  • AWS Config Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-03

Amazon CloudWatch features and specs

  • Comprehensive Monitoring
    Amazon CloudWatch offers extensive monitoring capabilities for AWS resources, applications, and services, providing real-time insights into system performance and operational health.
  • Scalability
    CloudWatch can handle monitoring data for resources at any scale, from small test environments to large-scale production deployments, easily scaling with your AWS infrastructure.
  • Seamless AWS Integration
    As a native AWS service, CloudWatch integrates seamlessly with other AWS services like EC2, RDS, S3, and Lambda, simplifying the process of setting up and managing monitoring.
  • Custom Metrics
    Users can publish their own custom metrics, allowing them to monitor specific data points relevant to their use case, in addition to the default metrics provided by AWS services.
  • Automated Actions
    With CloudWatch Alarms, users can set predefined thresholds to trigger automated actions such as sending notifications, executing Lambda functions, or altering auto-scaling groups.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon CloudWatch

  • Cost
    Depending on usage, monitoring a large number of resources or high-resolution custom metrics can become costly, potentially impacting overall cloud expenditure.
  • Complexity
    Although CloudWatch is powerful, it can be complex to set up and manage, particularly for users not familiar with AWS terminology and monitoring concepts.
  • Limited Third-Party Integration
    While CloudWatch integrates well with AWS services, integration with third-party tools is not as seamless. This might require additional configuration or third-party solutions for comprehensive monitoring.
  • Lag in Metric Visibility
    There can be a slight delay in the visibility of data points, especially for high-resolution metrics, which may delay immediate troubleshooting and resolution.
  • Basic Dashboarding
    The default dashboards provided by CloudWatch can be quite basic and may not meet the advanced visualization needs of some users, requiring additional tools for creating more sophisticated dashboards.

AWS Config features and specs

  • Continuous Monitoring
    AWS Config provides continuous monitoring of AWS resources, allowing users to track changes and ensure resources remain compliant with company policies and regulations.
  • Resource Inventory
    It maintains a comprehensive inventory of resources, providing detailed historical and current configuration information to help manage AWS resources effectively.
  • Security and Compliance
    AWS Config enables security and compliance auditing by recording and evaluating configurations against desired settings and standards, facilitating swift remediation of non-compliant resources.
  • Integration with AWS Services
    Easily integrates with other AWS services such as AWS Lambda, AWS CloudTrail, and AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to enhance monitoring, automation, and security.
  • Automated Evaluation
    AWS Config Rules can be used to automatically evaluate AWS resource configurations, ensuring they meet specific compliance requirements and taking corrective actions if needed.

Possible disadvantages of AWS Config

  • Cost
    AWS Config can become expensive as it records configuration changes and evaluates a large number of resources, especially in dynamic environments with many changes.
  • Complexity
    Setting up and managing AWS Config can be complex, requiring a good understanding of AWS services, IAM permissions, and compliance requirements.
  • Performance Impact
    In some cases, the continuous monitoring and recording of configuration changes might impact the performance of AWS environments, particularly in large-scale systems.
  • Limited to AWS Environment
    AWS Config is designed specifically for AWS resources and environments, which might limit its usability for organizations that rely on multi-cloud strategies or hybrid environments.

Amazon CloudWatch videos

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AWS Config videos

AWS Config Tutorial

More videos:

  • Review - Manage and Track Application and Infrastructure Configuration Changes using AWS Config
  • Review - AWS Config Introduction

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Config)
Monitoring Tools
93 93%
7% 7
Cloud Infrastructure
0 0%
100% 100
Log Management
100 100%
0% 0
Project Management
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Config

Amazon CloudWatch Reviews

35+ Of The Best CI/CD Tools: Organized By Category
Amazon CloudWatch is a detection solution for AWS cloud applications and other resources. For instance, you can use it to monitor Amazon services such as EC2. It will automatically alert and inform you of any anomalies it detects. Additionally, Amazon CloudWatch gives you the ability to track and collect metrics.
PagerDuty Alternatives
Amazon CloudWatch is a monitoring service for AWS cloud resources and the applications you run on AWS.
Source: zapier.com

AWS Config Reviews

We have no reviews of AWS Config yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Amazon CloudWatch should be more popular than AWS Config. It has been mentiond 71 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Amazon CloudWatch mentions (71)

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AWS Config mentions (22)

  • AWS Config vs Kubernetes Native Policy Engines: Who Governs What?
    AWS Config is a service that continuously monitors and records AWS resource configurations and evaluates them against desired states. Think of it as a compliance engine: it tracks configuration changes and helps you answer questions like: - Are my EKS clusters configured securely? - Are ECS tasks using only approved IAM roles? - Is anything exposed to the public internet unintentionally? - Source: dev.to / about 9 hours ago
  • AWS Config: Automate Your Cloud Compliance and Security
    Ref: What is AWS config Credits to aws for the cover page image I used. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • 🚀🚀Setting Up AWS Firewall Manager Used For Auditing Security Groups in AWS Organization accounts.
    Ii) AWS Config must be enabled in all member accounts (Firewall Manager relies on AWS Config for resource visibility). - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • What is Configuration Drift?
    Cloud providers offer services to detect, manage, and remediate configuration drift in their environments. Because cloud environments often become large and complex, services such as AWS Config, Azure Policy, and Workload Manager Evaluation can help continuously monitor and evaluate cloud resources and their configurations according to rules. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Scanning AWS S3 Buckets for Security Vulnerabilities
    Regularly audit and monitor your S3 bucket configurations: Establish a routine for auditing and monitoring your S3 bucket configurations. You can also set up alerts for any changes to permissions or policies, enabling timely detection and response to potential security incidents. Additionally, you can utilize tools and services such as AWS Config, which helps you assess, audit, and evaluate the configuration of... - Source: dev.to / 9 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Amazon CloudWatch and AWS Config, you can also consider the following products

AWS Budgets - Cloud Cost Management

Steampipe - Steampipe: select * from cloud; The extensible SQL interface to your favorite cloud APIs select * from AWS, Azure, GCP, Github, Slack etc.

AWS Cost Explorer - Cloud Cost Management

CloudQuery - CloudQuery enables you to assess, audit, and evaluate the configurations of your cloud assets.

NewRelic - New Relic is a Software Analytics company that makes sense of billions of metrics across millions of apps. We help the people who build modern software understand the stories their data is trying to tell them.

Google StackDriver - Stackdriver provides monitoring services for cloud-powered applications.