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AWS Elastic Beanstalk VS AWS CloudFormation

Compare AWS Elastic Beanstalk VS AWS CloudFormation and see what are their differences

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AWS Elastic Beanstalk logo AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Quickly deploy and manage applications in the AWS cloud.

AWS CloudFormation logo AWS CloudFormation

AWS CloudFormation gives developers and systems administrators an easy way to create and manage a...
  • AWS Elastic Beanstalk Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-30
  • AWS CloudFormation Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-22

AWS Elastic Beanstalk features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    AWS Elastic Beanstalk simplifies the process of deploying and scaling web applications and services. It automatically handles deployment, from capacity provisioning, load balancing, and auto-scaling to application health monitoring.
  • Integration with AWS Services
    Being part of the AWS ecosystem, Elastic Beanstalk easily integrates with other AWS services like RDS, S3, CloudWatch, and IAM, providing a comprehensive and secure application environment.
  • Multi-language Support
    Elastic Beanstalk supports multiple programming languages and frameworks, such as Java, .NET, Node.js, Python, Ruby, Go, and Docker, making it a versatile choice for developers.
  • Managed Environment
    Elastic Beanstalk provides a fully managed environment, taking care of the server configurations, operating system, and middleware, which allows developers to focus more on writing code.
  • Scalability
    Automatic scaling enables applications deployed on Elastic Beanstalk to handle varying amounts of traffic. The service automatically scales your application up and down based on the demands.

Possible disadvantages of AWS Elastic Beanstalk

  • Abstracted Control
    Elastic Beanstalk abstracts away much of the underlying infrastructure. While this simplifies usage, it also limits the amount of control and customization developers have over their environment.
  • Cost
    While the pricing model can be cost-effective for some use cases, it may become expensive as applications scale or when advanced features and higher-end resources are required.
  • Platform Limitations
    Elastic Beanstalk has certain limitations in terms of supported platforms and regions. Not every AWS service or feature is available in all regions, which could restrict some deployment scenarios.
  • Deploy Time
    Deployments can sometimes be slow, especially for large applications or when multiple environment updates are required. This can impact development and iteration cycles.
  • Debugging Complexity
    While Elastic Beanstalk manages the environment, diagnosing and debugging issues can sometimes be more complex due to the abstracted infrastructure. Developers may need to delve deeper into AWS logs and metrics for troubleshooting.

AWS CloudFormation features and specs

  • Infrastructure as Code
    CloudFormation allows you to define your infrastructure using code or templates, promoting version control, reviewability, and collaborative planning.
  • Automated Provisioning
    It automates the provisioning and updating of infrastructure, reducing the manual intervention required and minimizing human errors.
  • Consistency and Repeatability
    Ensures consistent configurations by deploying the same template multiple times across different environments, eliminating configuration drift.
  • Integration with Other AWS Services
    Tightly integrated with other AWS services, allowing for comprehensive infrastructure management, security policies, monitoring and logging.
  • Scalability and Flexibility
    Facilitates easy scaling and modifying of resources according to the application requirements without significant downtime.

Possible disadvantages of AWS CloudFormation

  • Complexity
    Large templates can become complex and difficult to manage, making troubleshooting and updating challenging.
  • Learning Curve
    Requires time and effort to learn and master, especially for newcomers to AWS or Infrastructure as Code (IaC) concepts.
  • Limited Cross-Platform Support
    Primarily tailored for AWS services, with limited support for managing infrastructure on other cloud platforms.
  • State Management
    Managing the state of your infrastructure can be complex, as creating or updating resources is highly dependent on the current state of your stack.
  • Debugging Issues
    Error messages and stack traces can sometimes be cryptic, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of deployment failures.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk videos

AWS Elastic Beanstalk Tutorial | What Is AWS Elastic Beanstalk? | AWS Tutorial | Simplilearn

AWS CloudFormation videos

What is AWS Cloudformation? Pros and Cons?

More videos:

  • Demo - AWS CloudFormation Tutorial | AWS CloudFormation Demo | AWS Tutorial | AWS Training | Edureka
  • Tutorial - AWS CloudFormation Template Tutorial

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AWS Elastic Beanstalk and AWS CloudFormation)
Cloud Computing
68 68%
32% 32
DevOps Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Cloud Hosting
100 100%
0% 0
Continuous Integration
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare AWS Elastic Beanstalk and AWS CloudFormation

AWS Elastic Beanstalk Reviews

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AWS CloudFormation Reviews

5 Best DevSecOps Tools in 2023
There are multiple providers for Infrastructure as Code such as AWS CloudFormation, RedHat Ansible, HashiCorp Terraform, Puppet, Chef, and others. It is advised to research each to determine what is best for any given situation since each has pros and cons. Some of these also are not completely free while others are. There are also some that are specific to a particular...
Do not use AWS CloudFormation
CloudFormation being a layer of indirection makes it difficult to work with in multi-region/multi-account scenarios. With CloudFormation you have to create Stack Sets and IAM policies that allow the CloudFormation service to impersonate other roles. The prerequisite steps you have to take to use CloudFormation across multiple accounts also must be taken just to have...
Why we use Terraform and not Chef, Puppet, Ansible, SaltStack, or CloudFormation
Of course, there are downsides to declarative languages too. Without access to a full programming language, your expressive power is limited. For example, some types of infrastructure changes, such as a rolling, zero-downtime deployment, are hard to express in purely declarative terms. Similarly, without the ability to do “logic” (e.g. if-statements, loops), creating...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, AWS CloudFormation should be more popular than AWS Elastic Beanstalk. It has been mentiond 123 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.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk mentions (38)

  • Deploying a Rails 7 + React app to AWS via Dokku
    My previous workplace was run by a team that lacked experience in getting an app from zero to production. We had a starter react + rails app in our hands, but the details of the final step--putting our app online for users to consume--was amorphous at best. Our whiteboard was inked with a "let's use Elastic Beanstalk," so I was told to do just that. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
  • Ask HN: How are you hosting multiple small apps?
    Based on the fact that your ideal is to have a similar experience to heroku than managing your own server setting up reverse proxies take a look at these options: 1) https://dokku.com - lets you turn your light sail instance basically into heroku 2) https://render.com 3) https://fly.io above is not what I do but would be the options I would pursue if I understand your preference and requirement correctly. - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • Deploying a Django Application to Elastic Beanstalk
    Elastic Beanstalk (EB) is a cloud deployment service provided by Amazon Web Services. It facilitates the deployment and scaling of web applications and services by automating the creation of individual infrastructure components, including EC2 instances, auto-scaling, ELBs, security groups, and other infrastructure components. Using the AWS Management Console and command-line interface, deployment with EB is quick... - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Fortifying Your Three-Tier Application: Proactive Measures for Strengthening Your Application Security
    This Terraform code snippet can be used to deploy an AWS Elastic Beanstalk environment:. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • So many options, getting confused
    K8s isn't going to play well with your deployment pattern without some advanced cluster management. Honestly it seems like you would be better serviced with something like https://aws.amazon.com/elasticbeanstalk/ . Source: almost 2 years ago
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AWS CloudFormation mentions (123)

  • What is an AWS CloudFormation Template?
    CloudFormation is an IaC AWS-native service that helps you model and configure your resources declaratively. Using CloudFormation, you can manage and operate your AWS infrastructure efficiently, so you can spend less time managing infrastructure. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Master Secure File Uploads to AWS S3 in Node.js with Express and Multer
    Basic knowledge of AWS and CloudFormation. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • AWS Serverless Security: Preventing HTTP Flood DDoS Attack
    AWS WAF Security Automations use AWS CloudFormation to quickly configure AWS WAF rules that help block these common types of attacks:. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Provisioning A Three-Tier Application on AWS using Infrastructure-As-Code (IaC)
    IaC stands for Infrastructure as code and for a while I struggled to understand this concept, and when it seemed like I was starting to get it, I started confusing it with some other thing. IaC allows you to build, change, and manage your infrastructure in a safe, consistent, and repeatable way by defining resource configurations that you can version, reuse, and share. Infrastructure as code is basically... - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • How to Migrate AWS Resources from one AWS Account to Another
    1.1 Using AWS CloudFormation If you already use AWS CloudFormation, you can simply bring your existing templates over to the new AWS account. AWS CloudFormation helps you manage and set up your resources easily. You create templates that allow you to quickly and reliably set up services or applications called “stacks.”. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing AWS Elastic Beanstalk and AWS CloudFormation, you can also consider the following products

Google App Engine - A powerful platform to build web and mobile apps that scale automatically.

Codeship - Codeship is a fast and secure hosted Continuous Delivery platform that scales with your needs.

AWS Lambda - Automatic, event-driven compute service

Amazon S3 - Amazon S3 is an object storage where users can store data from their business on a safe, cloud-based platform. Amazon S3 operates in 54 availability zones within 18 graphic regions and 1 local region.

Bamboo - Bamboo is a continuous integration and deployment tool that ties automated builds, tests and releases together in a single workflow.

Now Platform - Get native platform intelligence, so you can predict, prioritize, and proactively manage the work that matters most with the NOW Platform from ServiceNow.