Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Azure Container Instances VS AWS Fargate

Compare Azure Container Instances VS AWS Fargate and see what are their differences

Azure Container Instances logo Azure Container Instances

Easily run application containers in the cloud with a single command. Azure Container Instances lets you get started in seconds and lower your infrastructure costs with per-second billing.

AWS Fargate logo AWS Fargate

AWS Fargate is a compute engine for Amazon ECS and EKS that allows you to run containers without having to manage servers or clusters.
  • Azure Container Instances Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-02-05
  • AWS Fargate Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-29

Azure Container Instances features and specs

  • Simplified Deployment
    Azure Container Instances allows for quick and easy deployment of containers without the need for managing virtual machines or orchestrators.
  • Scalability
    ACIs can be scaled up or down based on demand, providing flexibility and cost-efficiency for varying workloads.
  • Cost-Effective
    You only pay for the compute resources you use, making it ideal for quick tasks and short-lived workloads.
  • Integration with Azure Services
    ACIs can be easily integrated with other Azure services such as Azure Virtual Networks, Azure Monitor, and Azure Logs for comprehensive cloud solutions.
  • Fast Start-up
    Containers start quickly in ACIs, allowing for rapid scaling and fast execution of workloads.

Possible disadvantages of Azure Container Instances

  • Limited Orchestration
    ACIs lack the advanced orchestration capabilities seen in Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) or other orchestrators, which may be necessary for complex applications.
  • Statefulness Limitations
    ACIs are best suited for stateless applications. Managing stateful applications may require additional services and configurations.
  • Not Ideal for Long-Running Workloads
    Though cost-effective for short tasks, ACIs may become expensive for long-running applications compared to other container solutions.
  • Limited Customization
    ACIs provide fewer customization options in terms of infrastructure and configurations compared to managing your own VMs or using AKS.
  • Networking Constraints
    While ACIs integrate with virtual networks, there are limitations on advanced networking features, which might be crucial for complex network architectures.

AWS Fargate features and specs

  • Simplified Management
    AWS Fargate eliminates the need to provision, configure, and scale clusters of virtual machines, simplifying container management and reducing operational overhead.
  • Scalability
    Fargate automatically scales compute capacity to match the resource requirements of your application, ensuring performance and cost-efficiency.
  • Isolation
    Each Fargate task runs in its own environment, providing better security through enhanced isolation between tasks compared to shared environments.
  • Cost Efficiency
    Fargate allows you to pay only for the resources you actually use, such as vCPU and memory, which can be more cost-effective for unpredictable workloads.
  • Integration
    Fargate integrates seamlessly with other AWS services like Amazon ECS, ECR, IAM, and CloudWatch, providing a cohesive ecosystem for building and deploying applications.

Possible disadvantages of AWS Fargate

  • Higher Cost for Persistent Workloads
    While Fargate can be cost-efficient for variable workloads, it may become more expensive compared to EC2 for long-running, persistent workloads due to its pricing model.
  • Configuration Limitations
    Fargate may have limitations on the customization and configuration options available, which can be restrictive for certain use cases requiring highly specialized setups.
  • Cold Start Latency
    Fargate can experience cold start latency, where newly instantiated containers take a few seconds or longer to become operational, which can be a drawback for latency-sensitive applications.
  • Limited to AWS Ecosystem
    Fargate is tied to AWS's ecosystem, potentially causing vendor lock-in and limiting flexibility if you need to transition to a multi-cloud or hybrid environment.
  • Learning Curve
    For teams not familiar with the AWS ecosystem, there can be a learning curve associated with leveraging Fargate and its integrations effectively.

Azure Container Instances videos

Azure Container Instances Tutorial | Serverless containers in cloud

More videos:

  • Review - Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) & Azure Container Instances (ACI) For Beginners

AWS Fargate videos

Deep Dive into AWS Fargate

More videos:

  • Tutorial - AWS Fargate Tutorial | AWS Tutorial For Beginners | AWS Certification Training | Edureka
  • Review - AWS Fargate - Running Dockerized Apps

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Azure Container Instances and AWS Fargate)
Developer Tools
30 30%
70% 70
DevOps Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Cloud Computing
12 12%
88% 88
Containers As A Service
47 47%
53% 53

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Azure Container Instances and AWS Fargate

Azure Container Instances Reviews

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AWS Fargate Reviews

Top 12 Kubernetes Alternatives to Choose From in 2023
For Container-as-a-Service (CaaS) Kubernetes alternatives, AWS Fargate is a great option. It is well-known for simplifying container management and deployment on AWS.
Source: humalect.com
Top 10 Best Container Software in 2022
Using AWS Fargate, you now don’t need to provision, configure, and scale cluster virtual machines to execute containers. This, in turn, eliminates the requirement to select server types, determine at what time to scale your clusters or optimize cluster packing.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, AWS Fargate should be more popular than Azure Container Instances. It has been mentiond 51 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.

Azure Container Instances mentions (8)

  • Azure Container Instances vs Sliplane
    Azure Container Instances (ACI) and Sliplane both simplify deployment, management, and scaling of containerized applications. However, there are some key differences, and both platforms serve different users and use cases. Let's compare them side by side. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • A Brief History Of Serverless
    This model was so successful that we started to see others create competitors such as AWS Fargate and Azure Container Instances. - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Similar to AWS Fargate provider?
    Https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/container-instances and as /u/re-thc posted, GKE Autopilot can be that for Google Cloud. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Deploy Application on Azure App Services
    Containerize and deploy the application using one of the container delivery services on Azure like App Services, Container Instances, or Kubernetes Services. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Run Apache APISIX on Microsoft Azure Container Instance
    Apache APISIX is an open-source Microservice API gateway and platform designed for managing microservices requests of high availability, fault tolerance, and distributed system. You can install Apache APISIX by the different methods (Docker, Helm, or RPM) and run it in the various public cloud providers because of its cloud-native behavior. In this post, you will learn how easily run Apache APISIX API Gateway in... - Source: dev.to / almost 3 years ago
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AWS Fargate mentions (51)

  • AWS Serverless Compute Offerings: A Comprehensive Developer’s Guide (2025)
    Security: Tasks run in dedicated runtime environments, ensuring workload isolation (AWS Fargate). - Source: dev.to / 4 days ago
  • Large-scale Data Processing with Step Functions : AWS Project
    The workers in this example are containers, running in Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) with an Amazon Fargate Capacity Provider . Though the workers could potentially run almost anywhere so long as they had access to poll the Step Functions Activity and report SUCCESS/FAILURE back to Step Functions. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Ephemeral Jobs Longer than the Lambda Timeout
    One option is to use ECS run-task with a Fargate launch type. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • AWS and Azure Are at Least 4x–10x More Expensive Than Hetzner
    The AWS equivalent to Cloud Run and Container Apps is called Fargate, https://aws.amazon.com/fargate/. - Source: Hacker News / 7 months ago
  • AI-assisted software development lifecycle
    Using Amazon Q Developer Chat to generate and update a Dockerfile and create a CloudFormaiton template to deploy the containerized application using Amazon ECS and AWS Fargate. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Azure Container Instances and AWS Fargate, you can also consider the following products

Kubernetes - Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers

Google Kubernetes Engine - Google Kubernetes Engine is a powerful cluster manager and orchestration system for running your Docker containers. Set up a cluster in minutes.

Apache Mesos - Apache Mesos abstracts resources away from machines, enabling fault-tolerant and elastic distributed systems to easily be built and run effectively.

Amazon ECS - Amazon EC2 Container Service is a highly scalable, high-performance​ container management service that supports Docker containers.

Rancher - Open Source Platform for Running a Private Container Service

AWS Lambda - Automatic, event-driven compute service