Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

AWS Organizations VS AWS Control Tower

Compare AWS Organizations VS AWS Control Tower and see what are their differences

AWS Organizations logo AWS Organizations

AWS Organizations from Amazon Web Services (AWS)

AWS Control Tower logo AWS Control Tower

AWS Control Tower provides you with a single location to set up a well-architected multi-account environment to govern your AWS workloads with rules for security, operations, and compliance. Sign up for our preview today!
  • AWS Organizations Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-28
  • AWS Control Tower Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-11-05

AWS Organizations features and specs

  • Centralized Management
    AWS Organizations allows for centralized management of multiple AWS accounts, making it easier to consolidate billing, implement policies, and manage permissions across all accounts.
  • Cost Savings
    By consolidating billing, you can leverage volume discounts across all accounts in the organization, potentially reducing overall costs.
  • Improved Security
    Organizations enables you to set Service Control Policies (SCPs) that establish permission guardrails, enhancing security by ensuring compliance with enterprise policies.
  • Resource Structuring
    It allows you to organize AWS accounts into a hierarchy of Organizational Units (OUs) for easier management and policy application.
  • Simplified Automation
    You can automate account provisioning and resource management across multiple accounts, leading to greater efficiency and consistency.

Possible disadvantages of AWS Organizations

  • Complexity
    Managing multiple accounts and policies can introduce complexity, especially in large organizations with diverse requirements.
  • Learning Curve
    Administrators must familiarize themselves with AWS Organizations' features and best practices, which may require additional training and time to master.
  • Policy Limitations
    Service Control Policies (SCPs) may not cover all scenarios, and crafting policies that do not unintentionally restrict necessary access can be challenging.
  • Account Limitations
    There may be limits on the number of accounts or organizational units you can have, necessitating careful planning and management.
  • Dependency on AWS Environment
    AWS Organizations is tightly integrated into the AWS ecosystem, which means it may not be suitable for enterprises operating in hybrid or multi-cloud environments.

AWS Control Tower features and specs

  • Simplified Multi-Account Management
    AWS Control Tower provides a straightforward setup and governance model for managing multiple AWS accounts, which helps organizations enforce policies and maintain security across their AWS environment.
  • Automated Policy Enforcement
    It offers pre-configured governance guardrails that automatically enforce baseline policies, which help in maintaining compliance and security without requiring manual intervention.
  • Centralized Visibility
    The service gives a central dashboard for monitoring the compliance and status of all accounts within an organization's AWS environment, making it easier to manage and oversee AWS resources.
  • Scalability
    AWS Control Tower is designed to scale with the needs of the organization, allowing for the addition and management of AWS accounts as the organization grows.
  • Integration with AWS Services
    It integrates with other AWS services like AWS Organizations, AWS SSO, and AWS Config, providing a cohesive environment for governance and security management.

Possible disadvantages of AWS Control Tower

  • Region Limitations
    AWS Control Tower is not available in all AWS regions, which could be a limitation for organizations that require resources in non-supported regions.
  • Complex Pricing
    Understanding the cost associated with using AWS Control Tower can be difficult as it involves considering the costs of the underlying services it uses, such as AWS Organizations and AWS Config.
  • Limited Customization
    The predefined guardrails might not cover all specific governance needs of an organization, leading to the requirement for additional manual setup or customization.
  • Initial Setup Complexity
    While designed for simplicity, the initial setup process for AWS Control Tower can be complex for those unfamiliar with AWS governance and multi-account architecture.
  • Dependency on AWS Services
    Since AWS Control Tower relies on other AWS services, any disruptions or changes in those services could impact the effectiveness and reliability of AWS Control Tower.

AWS Organizations videos

Implementing AWS Organizations

More videos:

  • Review - Mastering AWS Organizations with Infrastructure-As-Code

AWS Control Tower videos

What is AWS Control Tower?

More videos:

  • Review - AWS re:Inforce 2019: Using AWS Control Tower to Govern Multi-Account AWS Environments (GRC313-R)
  • Review - Enable AWS Control Tower for Existing Organizations

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AWS Organizations and AWS Control Tower)
Data Integration
86 86%
14% 14
Security
0 0%
100% 100
Stream Processing
100 100%
0% 0
Monitoring Tools
25 25%
75% 75

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, AWS Organizations should be more popular than AWS Control Tower. It has been mentiond 28 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 Organizations mentions (28)

  • My personal AWS account setup - IAM Identity Center, temporary credentials and sandbox account
    Like a business, I created an AWS organization to manage my accounts. I'm using these accounts:. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • How to Improve Your Security Posture in Just a Few Clicks with AWS IAM Access Analyzer
    If you are working in a multi-account setup which should be the case if you run more than one workload in more than one SDLC stage, it is a best practice to use AWS Organizations to govern and manage your AWS accounts. Going further into the best practices, it is a a recommendation to have a separate Security or Audit AWS Account to manage your security services on the organizational scale. In that case, you... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Allowing an AWS account to delegate DNS subdomains to another account in two simple CDK stacks
    The solution here requires you to be using AWS Organizations to create AWS accounts for your developers. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Enterprise-scaled Self-Healing StackSets
    At this scale, operations can take a lot of time, because there are multiple operational tasks that we need to do when AWS accounts are leaving the AWS Organization or Teams are nuking the AWS account, StackSets Instances get drifted, because not all required resources for compliance can be secured ( SCP Limitations ), existing AWS accounts are joining the AWS Organization and all mandatory StackSets needs to be... - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Secure Your AWS Resources with IAM, Cognito, and Service Control Policies: 
    AWS Organizations. (n.d.). Retrieved April 25, 2023, from https://aws.amazon.com/organizations/. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
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AWS Control Tower mentions (17)

  • Cloud Made Easy: AWS Control Tower
    Let's explore today something interesting and very important AWS service: Control tower. - Source: dev.to / 18 days ago
  • Is AWS Landing Zone Accelerator any good?
    I think it’s been superseded by Control Tower, right? Landing Zones solutions refer to the days when there wasn’t an actual service that did account vending and policy. Https://aws.amazon.com/controltower/. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Receiving Slack notifications when CloudTrail logging gets turned off
    Amazon CloudTrail is the surveillance camera for our accounts. It records every API call that any users or roles make. If we have multiple accounts set up in AWS Organizations, we can create a central trail in the management account. We can then enable logging to all accounts and all regions. Or, if we use Control Tower to set up the account structure, we don't need to do anything because it will automatically... - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Presenting AWS Speakers Directory, an AI Hackathon Project
    Deploy our application to sandbox, test, and production environments in a multi-account AWS organization managed by Control Tower. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Testing your Landing Zone when using AWS Deployment Framework
    Build your own… In this post I am focussing on ADF. The benefit of ADF over AWS Control Tower is that you have more control over the framework. All resources run in your accounts and are under your control. AWS Control Tower is a managed service by AWS. Giving less flexibility but remove maintenance burden. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing AWS Organizations and AWS Control Tower, you can also consider the following products

RabbitMQ - RabbitMQ is an open source message broker software.

Qualys - Qualys helps your business automate the full spectrum of auditing, compliance and protection of your IT systems and web applications.

IBM MQ - IBM MQ is messaging middleware that simplifies and accelerates the integration of diverse applications and data across multiple platforms.

Azure Security Center - Turn on Azure Security Center to gain unmatched hybrid cloud security management and threat protection for your workloads.

Apache ActiveMQ - Apache ActiveMQ is an open source messaging and integration patterns server.

Nutanix Beam - Nutanix Beam is a multi-cloud optimization service