Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Amazon EC2 VS Amazon API Gateway

Compare Amazon EC2 VS Amazon API Gateway and see what are their differences

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Amazon EC2 logo Amazon EC2

Amazon Web Services offers reliable, scalable, and inexpensive cloud computing services. Free to join, pay only for what you use.

Amazon API Gateway logo Amazon API Gateway

Create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs at any scale
  • Amazon EC2 Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-06
  • Amazon API Gateway Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-12

Amazon EC2 features and specs

  • Scalability
    Amazon EC2 allows you to quickly scale your resources up or down based on demand. This flexibility helps you manage your compute needs efficiently without overcommitting resources.
  • Pay-as-you-go pricing
    With Amazon EC2, you only pay for the instances you use. This usage-based pricing model can help reduce costs, especially for businesses with variable compute workloads.
  • Wide range of instance types
    EC2 offers a variety of instance types optimized for different use cases, such as compute-intensive or memory-intensive applications, allowing you to choose the most suitable instance for your needs.
  • Global availability
    Amazon EC2 is available in multiple regions around the world, enabling you to deploy your applications closer to your users for reduced latency and improved performance.
  • Integration with other AWS services
    EC2 integrates seamlessly with other AWS services such as S3, RDS, and VPC, providing a comprehensive cloud infrastructure for your applications.
  • Security and compliance
    Amazon EC2 provides a range of security features, including VPC, IAM roles, and encryption, to help you protect your data and comply with regulatory requirements.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon EC2

  • Complexity
    Managing EC2 instances can be complex, especially as your infrastructure grows. This may require specialized knowledge and skills to properly configure, monitor, and maintain the instances.
  • Cost management
    Although the pay-as-you-go model can be cost-effective, it can also lead to unexpected expenses if resources are not managed carefully. Overprovisioning or forgetting to shut down instances can quickly increase costs.
  • Performance variability
    While EC2 offers high performance, there can be variability in resources allocated to your instances, especially in the shared tenancy model. This can lead to occasional performance inconsistencies.
  • In-depth knowledge required
    To fully leverage Amazon EC2, a good level of expertise in AWS services, cloud computing concepts, and best practices is required. This can be a barrier for organizations without adequate technical skills.
  • Vendor lock-in
    Relying heavily on Amazon EC2 can lead to vendor lock-in, making it challenging to migrate to alternative platforms or cloud providers without significant effort and potential downtime.
  • Privacy concerns
    Although AWS provides robust security measures, some organizations may have concerns about storing sensitive data on a third-party managed service and prefer managing their own infrastructure.

Amazon API Gateway features and specs

  • Scalability
    API Gateway automatically scales to handle the number of requests your API receives, ensuring high availability and reliability.
  • Ease of Integration
    Seamlessly integrates with other AWS services like Lambda, DynamoDB, and IAM, enabling a cohesive environment for developing serverless applications.
  • Built-in Security
    Provides features such as IAM roles, API keys, and AWS WAF integration for safeguarding your APIs from potential threats.
  • Monitoring and Logging
    Supports CloudWatch integration for monitoring API requests and responses, helping you maintain observability and troubleshoot issues effectively.
  • Cost-Effective
    You only pay for the requests made to your APIs and the amount of data transferred out, making it a cost-effective solution for many use cases.
  • Caching
    Built-in caching at the API Gateway level can improve performance and reduce latency for frequently accessed data.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon API Gateway

  • Complexity in Configuration
    Setting up and managing API Gateway can be complex, especially for users who are not familiar with AWS services and cloud infrastructure.
  • Cold Start Latency
    When integrated with AWS Lambda, cold starts can introduce latency which can affect the performance of your API.
  • Cost for High Throughput
    While cost-effective for low to moderate usage, the costs can escalate with high throughput and large data transfers.
  • Debugging Issues
    Diagnosis can be complicated due to the multi-tenant nature of the service and the need to dive into multiple AWS logs and services.
  • Limited Customization
    There might be constraints regarding customizations and fine-tuning your APIs compared to self-hosting solutions.
  • Vendor Lock-in
    Dependence on AWS infrastructure can lead to vendor lock-in, making it challenging to migrate to other cloud providers or solutions.

Amazon EC2 videos

Introduction to Amazon EC2 - Elastic Cloud Server & Hosting with AWS

More videos:

  • Review - What is Amazon EC2? (Part 1) | AWS Training

Amazon API Gateway videos

Building APIs with Amazon API Gateway

More videos:

  • Review - Create API using AWS API Gateway service - Amazon API Gateway p1

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Amazon EC2 and Amazon API Gateway)
Cloud Computing
80 80%
20% 20
API Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Cloud Infrastructure
100 100%
0% 0
APIs
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Amazon API Gateway might be a bit more popular than Amazon EC2. We know about 107 links to it since March 2021 and only 73 links to Amazon EC2. 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 EC2 mentions (73)

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Amazon API Gateway mentions (107)

  • 10 Lightweight API Gateways for Your Next Project
    AWS API Gateway is Amazon’s managed gateway service, designed to work seamlessly within the AWS ecosystem. It supports both REST and WebSocket APIs, with HTTP APIs being the lightweight, lower-cost option for simple proxying and routing use cases. - Source: dev.to / 18 days ago
  • 4 Cognito User Pools features you might not know about
    This opens up a world of customization options for controlling app access. For example, we can embed custom data in the ID token for the front-end client to use, enabling guards to restrict content. Alternatively, we can add custom scopes to the access token and implement fine-grained access control in an API Gateway API. All it takes is some Lambda function code, and Cognito triggers it at the right time. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Verifying Cognito access tokens - Comparing three JWT packages for Lambda authorizers
    When the built-in Amazon API Gateway authorization methods don’t fully meet our needs, we can set up Lambda authorizers to manage the access control process. Even when using Cognito user pools and Cognito access tokens, there may still be a need for custom authorization logic. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Implementing advanced authorization with AWS Lambda for endpoint-specific access
    The API Gateway includes an endpoint structured like this:. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Turning APIs into Revenue: Passive Income Strategies for Developers
    Amazon Web Services exemplifies this approach with automatic volume discounts that encourage increased usage while maximizing revenue at each consumption level. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Amazon EC2 and Amazon API Gateway, you can also consider the following products

DigitalOcean - Simplifying cloud hosting. Deploy an SSD cloud server in 55 seconds.

Postman - The Collaboration Platform for API Development

Linode - We make it simple to develop, deploy, and scale cloud infrastructure at the best price-to-performance ratio in the market.

AWS Lambda - Automatic, event-driven compute service

Microsoft Azure - Windows Azure and SQL Azure enable you to build, host and scale applications in Microsoft datacenters.

Apigee - Intelligent and complete API platform