What's the Difference Between AWS Fargate and AWS Lambda?

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

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Compare side-by-side

Comparisons	AWS Fargate	AWS Lambda
Category	Containers, Serverless Containers	Serverless, Functions
Description	Serverless compute for containers. Run containers without managing servers or clusters.	Service for running code without thinking about servers or clusters
Best for	Microservices Batch processing ML inference Application migration	Event-driven processing API backends Data transformation Real-time file processing
Key features	No server management Isolation by design ECS & EKS compatible Spot capacity ARM support	Auto scaling Sub-second metering Multiple runtimes Container image support Provisioned concurrency
Pricing model	Pay for vCPU and memory per second	Pay-per-request + compute duration
Free tier	No	Yes
Expert take	“Fargate removes the need to manage EC2 instances for your containers. Choose it when you want per-task isolation without worrying about patching hosts, right-sizing nodes, or bin-packing. You pay per-second for only the vCPU and memory each task uses.” — Didier Durand, 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	Learn more about AWS Fargate »	Learn more about AWS Lambda »

When to use AWS Fargate or AWS Lambda

Use AWS Fargate when:

Microservices
Batch processing
ML inference
Application migration

Learn more about AWS Fargate »

Use AWS Lambda when:

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

Learn more about AWS Lambda »

Next steps with AWS for Containers

Create a free account

Start building with AWS Fargate and AWS Lambda on the AWS Free Tier.

Get started with AWS Fargate

Serverless compute for containers. Run containers without managing servers or clusters.

Go to AWS Fargate

Get started with AWS Lambda

Service for running code without thinking about servers or clusters

Go to AWS Lambda

AWS product comparisons

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS?

Both are fully managed relational database services on AWS, but Aurora is a cloud-native engine built for higher performance and availability, while RDS gives you familiar open-source and commercial engines with less operational overhead than self-managed.

What's the difference between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon RDS?

DynamoDB is a serverless NoSQL database for applications with well-defined access patterns that need consistent single-digit millisecond performance. RDS is a managed relational database for applications that need SQL, joins, and transactional integrity across multiple engines.

What's the difference between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Keyspaces?

Both are fully managed, serverless-capable NoSQL databases on AWS. DynamoDB is AWS-native with its own API and data model; Keyspaces is Apache Cassandra-compatible, letting you use existing Cassandra drivers, tools, and expertise.

What are the differences between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon DocumentDB?

Both are fully managed NoSQL databases on AWS, but they serve different data models. DynamoDB is a key-value store optimized for known access patterns at massive scale; DocumentDB is a document database for flexible JSON schemas with MongoDB compatibility.

What's the difference between Amazon DocumentDB and Amazon Neptune?

Both handle semi-structured data, but they're optimized for different query patterns. DocumentDB stores and queries JSON documents; Neptune stores and traverses relationships between entities.

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS?

Both are fully managed relational database services on AWS, but Aurora is a cloud-native engine built for higher performance and availability, while RDS gives you familiar open-source and commercial engines with less operational overhead than self-managed.

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon Neptune?

Both are purpose-built, fully managed AWS databases, but they solve fundamentally different problems. Aurora handles structured relational data with SQL; Neptune handles highly connected data where relationships between entities are the primary query pattern.

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon DynamoDB?

Both are fully managed AWS database services, but they serve fundamentally different data models and access patterns. Aurora is a relational database for structured data with relationships; DynamoDB is a NoSQL key-value store built for single-digit millisecond performance at any scale.

What's the difference between Amazon RDS and Amazon Redshift?

Both run SQL queries, but they're optimized for fundamentally different workloads. RDS handles transactional operations (inserts, updates, lookups) for your application. Redshift handles analytical queries (aggregations, scans, joins across billions of rows) for your data team.

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