Skip to main content

What's the Difference Between AWS Local Zones and AWS Outposts Servers?

Compare AWS Local Zones and AWS Outposts Servers side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.

Compare side-by-side

Comparisons
AWS Local Zones
AWS Outposts Servers
Category

Compute, Edge Computing

Compute, Hybrid Edge
Description

Infrastructure to deploy latency-sensitive workloads near end users

Individual 1U or 2U server form factor for smaller on-premises or edge locations.
Best for
  • Media content creation
  • Real-time gaming
  • Live video streaming
  • Machine learning inference
  • Edge locations
  • Retail stores
  • Branch offices
  • Factory floors
Key features
  • Low-latency compute
  • VPC extension
  • Multiple services available
  • Direct Connect support
  • Metro-area deployment
  • 1U/2U form factor
  • EC2 instances
  • EBS local storage
  • Managed by AWS
  • Network connectivity
Pricing model

Pay for underlying resources used

3-year term pricing
Free tier

No

No
Expert take

“Local Zones bring AWS infrastructure to metro areas for single-digit millisecond latency to end users. Deploy the same APIs and services without managing edge hardware.”
— Oleksii Bebych, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]

“Outposts Servers provide AWS compute in a 1U or 2U form factor for space-constrained locations like retail stores, factories, or hospital departments.”
— Didier Durand, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]
Product page

Learn more about AWS Local Zones »

Learn more about AWS Outposts Servers »

When to use AWS Local Zones or AWS Outposts Servers

Use AWS Local Zones when:

  • Media content creation
  • Real-time gaming
  • Live video streaming
  • Machine learning inference

Learn more about AWS Local Zones »

Use AWS Outposts Servers when:

  • Edge locations
  • Retail stores
  • Branch offices
  • Factory floors

Learn more about AWS Outposts Servers »

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.
Learn more
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.
Learn more
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.
Learn more
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.
Learn more
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.
Learn more
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.
Learn more

Did you find what you were looking for today?

Let us know so we can improve the quality of the content on our pages