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What's the Difference Between Amazon EC2 and AWS Lambda?

Compare Amazon EC2 and AWS Lambda side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.

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Comparisons
Amazon EC2
AWS Lambda
Category

Compute, Virtual Machines

Serverless, Functions

Description

Secure and resizable compute capacity for virtually any workload

Service for running code without thinking about servers or clusters

Best for
  • Web hosting
  • Batch processing
  • HPC
  • Machine learning training
  • Gaming servers
  • Event-driven processing
  • API backends
  • Data transformation
  • Real-time file processing
Key features
  • Auto Scaling
  • Elastic Load Balancing
  • GPU instances
  • Bare metal instances
  • Nitro System
  • Auto scaling
  • Sub-second metering
  • Multiple runtimes
  • Container image support
  • Provisioned concurrency
Pricing model

On-Demand, Reserved, Spot, Savings Plans

Pay-per-request + compute duration

Free tier

Yes

Yes

Expert take

“EC2 gives you full control over the compute environment with 750+ instance types. For workloads that need sustained CPU, GPU acceleration, or specific OS configurations, EC2 remains the most flexible option on AWS.”
— Riku Kobayashi, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

“Lambda is best used for single-function microservices that are small, fast, and easy to maintain. For workloads with unpredictable traffic, short duration, or infrequent invocations, Lambda eliminates the need to manage infrastructure entirely.”
— Didier Durand, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

Product page

When to use Amazon EC2 or AWS Lambda

Use Amazon EC2 when:

  • Web hosting
  • Batch processing
  • HPC
  • Machine learning training
  • Gaming servers

Learn more about Amazon EC2 »

Use AWS Lambda when:

  • Event-driven processing
  • API backends
  • Data transformation
  • Real-time file processing

Learn more about AWS Lambda »

AWS product comparisons

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