What is Amazon EC2 used for?

Amazon EC2 is the AWS service for renting resizable virtual servers in the cloud, with many instance, storage, networking and purchase options. It is a good fit for hosting web applications on virtual servers, running batch and data processing jobs, and scaling compute for machine learning workloads.

How much does Amazon EC2 cost?

Amazon EC2 is a paid product with no free plan. A free trial is available.

Is Amazon EC2 open source?

No. Amazon EC2 is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Amazon EC2 include Ubicloud, KubeVirt and Incus.

What are some alternatives to Amazon EC2?

Amazon EC2 competes with DigitalOcean, Linode and Vultr. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Amazon EC2 alternatives.

Amazon EC2: features, pricing and alternatives

About Amazon EC2

Amazon EC2 is Amazon Web Services' virtual server service. It lets users launch compute instances on demand, choose how much processing power, memory and storage each one has, and change capacity as needs shift, without owning physical hardware.

AWS emphasizes choice: customers pick from a wide range of processors, storage and networking options and operating systems, and from several purchase models for paying for capacity. EC2 is a foundational service within AWS, so it connects to the platform's networking, storage, security, load balancing and scaling features, and many other AWS services run on top of it.

EC2 is a hosted, proprietary AWS service, not something you install yourself. It suits teams that need flexible general-purpose compute in the cloud, from web servers and batch jobs to databases and machine learning workloads.

Key features

Resizable virtual servers on demand
Wide choice of processors and instance types
Choice of operating systems
Multiple purchase models for capacity
Integration with AWS networking and storage
Security controls for instances

Good fit for

→Hosting web applications on virtual servers
→Running batch and data processing jobs
→Scaling compute for machine learning workloads

Tags: cloud-compute; virtual-machines; aws; iaas; infrastructure; servers

Amazon EC2: questions and answers

What is Amazon EC2 used for?: Amazon EC2 is the AWS service for renting resizable virtual servers in the cloud, with many instance, storage, networking and purchase options. It is a good fit for hosting web applications on virtual servers, running batch and data processing jobs, and scaling compute for machine learning workloads.
How much does Amazon EC2 cost?: Amazon EC2 is a paid product with no free plan. A free trial is available.
Is Amazon EC2 open source?: No. Amazon EC2 is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Amazon EC2 include Ubicloud, KubeVirt and Incus.
What are some alternatives to Amazon EC2?: Amazon EC2 competes with DigitalOcean, Linode and Vultr. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Amazon EC2 alternatives.