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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

Learn more about Amazon EC2 »

Learn more about AWS Lambda »

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

Read about AWS products side-by-side

Displaying 1-8 (21)
2026-07-30

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.
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2026-07-30

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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2026-07-30

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.
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2026-07-30

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.
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2026-07-30

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.
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2026-07-30

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.
Learn more
2026-07-30

What's the difference between Amazon ElastiCache and Amazon MemoryDB?

Both are Redis-compatible, fully managed in-memory services on AWS. ElastiCache is designed as a caching layer in front of another database; MemoryDB is designed as a primary database that combines in-memory speed with Multi-AZ durability.
Learn more
2026-07-30

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.
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