Fargate vs EC2 Launch Type: Choosing Correctly
~12 min read
A practical decision framework for choosing between ECS's two launch types.
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Key points
- •Fargate: no server management, per-task billing, best for bursty/unpredictable or small-team workloads
- •EC2 launch type: more control, Reserved/Spot pricing available, best for steady-state high-scale or specialized hardware needs
- •Capacity providers let one cluster mix Fargate and EC2 capacity, with ECS handling the placement split
- •Fargate bills for the full reserved CPU/memory in the task definition regardless of actual usage — right-size task definitions to avoid overpaying