{"slug": "aws-fargate", "name": "AWS Fargate", "category": "infra", "category_name": "Infrastructure and DevOps", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 9, "warners": 3, "score": 1.366, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2025-11-17", "latest": "2026-10-14", "why": "My life has been much easier since I migrated to ECS Fargate - the service just works great.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 1, "compare": 1, "warn": 3}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "My life has been much easier since I migrated to ECS Fargate - the service just works great.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://aws.amazon.com/fargate/", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["AWS Fargate", "Amazon ECS Fargate"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 801324368, "item_id": 50082773, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50082773", "by": "happymellon", "date": "2026-10-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "AWS has Fargate which does the same thing if you are building containers.", "excerpt": "It sounds like your are comparing different services. AWS has Fargate which does the same thing if you are building containers. https://sliplane.io/blog/comparing-prices-aws-fargate-vs-azure-container-apps-vs-google-cloud-run", "context": "", "use_case": "container hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 765981216, "item_id": 47873826, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47873826", "by": "ricardo_lien", "date": "2026-04-23", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "My life has been much easier since I migrated to ECS Fargate - the service just works great.", "excerpt": "Yes, I've had similar experiences. My life has been much easier since I migrated to ECS Fargate - the service just works great. No more 2AM calls (at least not because of infra incidents), no more cost concerns from my boss.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Am Building a Cloud"}, {"id": 759967217, "item_id": 47497951, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47497951", "by": "raw_anon_1111", "date": "2026-03-23", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "instead of just using Fargate", "excerpt": "Why are you running your own AMIs for ECS instead of just using Fargate? The build pipeline I used in CodeBuild was build the Docker container and a sidecar Nginx container. The parameter you pass in is the new Docker container you just built. But how would LocalStack help? You also don\u2019t have massive CDK apps. The Docker images are going to change much more frequently than your persistent layer. You\u2019re not going to ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Local Stack Archived their GitHub repo and requires an account to run"}, {"id": 749858929, "item_id": 46866183, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866183", "by": "raw_anon_1111", "date": "2026-02-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just used ECS/fargate", "excerpt": "Fair point, I\u2019m working on a project now that doesn\u2019t require responsiveness - it\u2019s not user facing. We were burned so bad by Lambda cold starts for user facing lambdas that were backing websites we said forget it and just used ECS/fargate. This is my go to template - I didn\u2019t write it. I found it 7 years ago. https://github.com/1Strategy/fargate-cloudformation-example/blob/master/fargate.yaml You just update the par", "context": "", "use_case": "containers for user-facing sites", "switched_from": "AWS Lambda", "story": "Stelvio: Ship Python to AWS"}, {"id": 737648048, "item_id": 46103003, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46103003", "by": "PebblesHD", "date": "2025-11-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Each service gets packaged as a container and deployed to ECS fargate, on a couple of EC2 instances that are realistically a bit oversubscribed", "excerpt": "While not a complete rebuttal, allow me the following. I manage a team of 4 scrum masters each with 5-6 engineers. We provide services via a user interface we'll call the console, as would be fairly familiar to any B2B or B2C service provider. The backends of this portal are split up by functional area, so we have a compute management service providing CRUD apis for dealing with our compute offerings, a storage servi", "context": "manages a team of 4 scrum masters with 5-6 engineers each", "use_case": "deploying containerized services", "switched_from": "", "story": "You want microservices, but do you need them?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 779057600, "item_id": 48691100, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691100", "by": "easton", "date": "2026-06-26", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Fargate takes minutes to launch while Lambda takes a second or less.", "excerpt": "Counterpoint: https://justingarrison.com/blog/2024-02-08-fargate-is-not-firecracker/ And also, you\u2019ll notice that Fargate takes minutes to launch while Lambda takes a second or less. You\u2019re waiting on AWS to launch a EC2 with your config and pull your containers into it. (that article matches things I heard from Amazon when I asked why my stuff is slow)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs"}, {"id": 767157921, "item_id": 47947370, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47947370", "by": "renegade-otter", "date": "2026-04-29", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I still have battle scars from trying to set up AWS Fargate", "excerpt": "I think the same of AWS. There are alternatives out there, especially for small personal projects. I use Digital Ocean and couldn't be happier. The bill is small, and it's refreshingly simple to host a container. I still have battle scars from trying to set up AWS Fargate. It's just a hodge podge of corporately requested features at this point.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ghostty is leaving GitHub"}, {"id": 735290704, "item_id": 45955669, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45955669", "by": "leetrout", "date": "2025-11-17", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "we switched from fargate to EC2 auto scaling group", "excerpt": "Just as an aside for the fargate convo... we switched from fargate to EC2 auto scaling group so we could run a custom AMI that has our container images (which are larger than I like) pre-baked and we went from a ~3 minute startup in fargate to ~30 seconds with the ASG when it's not triggering a scaling action. We're using prefect not Temporal and each prefect flow launches in a discrete ECS task so the waiting added ", "context": "", "use_case": "Running Prefect flow tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Deploying Temporal on AWS ECS with Terraform"}]}], "who": [{"by": "PebblesHD", "context": "manages a team of 4 scrum masters with 5-6 engineers each", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46103003", "date": "2025-11-30"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["container hosting", "containers for user-facing sites", "deploying containerized services", "running prefect flow tasks"], "compared": [{"slug": "aws-lambda", "name": "AWS Lambda", "co": 2, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "amazon-ec2", "name": "Amazon EC2", "co": 1, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 1}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50069318", "title": "AWS Lambda Web Functions", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48642510", "title": "Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47939579", "title": "Ghostty is leaving GitHub", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47872324", "title": "I Am Building a Cloud", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47741527", "title": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47493657", "title": "Local Stack Archived their GitHub repo and requires an account to run", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"compare": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1, "warn": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"warn": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 801324368, "item_id": 50082773, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50082773", "by": "happymellon", "date": "2026-10-14", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "AWS has Fargate which does the same thing if you are building containers.", "excerpt": "It sounds like your are comparing different services. AWS has Fargate which does the same thing if you are building containers. https://sliplane.io/blog/comparing-prices-aws-fargate-vs-azure-container-apps-vs-google-cloud-run", "context": "", "use_case": "container hosting", "switched_from": "", "story": "AWS Lambda Web Functions"}, {"id": 779057600, "item_id": 48691100, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691100", "by": "easton", "date": "2026-06-26", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Fargate takes minutes to launch while Lambda takes a second or less.", "excerpt": "Counterpoint: https://justingarrison.com/blog/2024-02-08-fargate-is-not-firecracker/ And also, you\u2019ll notice that Fargate takes minutes to launch while Lambda takes a second or less. You\u2019re waiting on AWS to launch a EC2 with your config and pull your containers into it. (that article matches things I heard from Amazon when I asked why my stuff is slow)", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Run isolated sandboxes with full lifecycle control: AWS introduces MicroVMs"}, {"id": 767157921, "item_id": 47947370, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47947370", "by": "renegade-otter", "date": "2026-04-29", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "I still have battle scars from trying to set up AWS Fargate", "excerpt": "I think the same of AWS. There are alternatives out there, especially for small personal projects. I use Digital Ocean and couldn't be happier. The bill is small, and it's refreshingly simple to host a container. I still have battle scars from trying to set up AWS Fargate. It's just a hodge podge of corporately requested features at this point.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ghostty is leaving GitHub"}, {"id": 765981216, "item_id": 47873826, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47873826", "by": "ricardo_lien", "date": "2026-04-23", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "My life has been much easier since I migrated to ECS Fargate - the service just works great.", "excerpt": "Yes, I've had similar experiences. My life has been much easier since I migrated to ECS Fargate - the service just works great. No more 2AM calls (at least not because of infra incidents), no more cost concerns from my boss.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Am Building a Cloud"}, {"id": 763952353, "item_id": 47747022, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47747022", "by": "Andys", "date": "2026-04-12", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Any containerized app, uses Fargate (no Kubernetes)", "excerpt": "Deploy to your own AWS account with minimal config! - Any containerized app, uses Fargate (no Kubernetes) - Heroku-like CLI tool with instant console sessions - Set up SQL/Redis instantly with Heroku-like add-ons. - Autoscaling, preview apps, audit trail, release approvals. https://tapitalee.com", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"}, {"id": 759967217, "item_id": 47497951, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47497951", "by": "raw_anon_1111", "date": "2026-03-23", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "instead of just using Fargate", "excerpt": "Why are you running your own AMIs for ECS instead of just using Fargate? The build pipeline I used in CodeBuild was build the Docker container and a sidecar Nginx container. The parameter you pass in is the new Docker container you just built. But how would LocalStack help? You also don\u2019t have massive CDK apps. The Docker images are going to change much more frequently than your persistent layer. You\u2019re not going to ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Local Stack Archived their GitHub repo and requires an account to run"}, {"id": 749858929, "item_id": 46866183, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46866183", "by": "raw_anon_1111", "date": "2026-02-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "just used ECS/fargate", "excerpt": "Fair point, I\u2019m working on a project now that doesn\u2019t require responsiveness - it\u2019s not user facing. We were burned so bad by Lambda cold starts for user facing lambdas that were backing websites we said forget it and just used ECS/fargate. This is my go to template - I didn\u2019t write it. I found it 7 years ago. https://github.com/1Strategy/fargate-cloudformation-example/blob/master/fargate.yaml You just update the par", "context": "", "use_case": "containers for user-facing sites", "switched_from": "AWS Lambda", "story": "Stelvio: Ship Python to AWS"}, {"id": 741073043, "item_id": 46317065, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46317065", "by": "maccard", "date": "2025-12-18", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "it\u2019s what you _want_ fargate to be.", "excerpt": "There\u2019s a couple of providers that give you that kind of abstraction. Playfab is _pretty close_ but it\u2019s fairly slow to ramp up and down. There is/was multiplay - they\u2019ve had some changes recently and I\u2019m not sure what their situation is right now. There\u2019s also stuff like Hathora (they\u2019re great but expensive). At a previous job, we used azure container apps - it\u2019s what you _want_ fargate to be. AIUI, Google Cloud Run", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Systemd v259"}, {"id": 737648048, "item_id": 46103003, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46103003", "by": "PebblesHD", "date": "2025-11-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Each service gets packaged as a container and deployed to ECS fargate, on a couple of EC2 instances that are realistically a bit oversubscribed", "excerpt": "While not a complete rebuttal, allow me the following. I manage a team of 4 scrum masters each with 5-6 engineers. We provide services via a user interface we'll call the console, as would be fairly familiar to any B2B or B2C service provider. The backends of this portal are split up by functional area, so we have a compute management service providing CRUD apis for dealing with our compute offerings, a storage servi", "context": "manages a team of 4 scrum masters with 5-6 engineers each", "use_case": "deploying containerized services", "switched_from": "", "story": "You want microservices, but do you need them?"}, {"id": 735290704, "item_id": 45955669, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45955669", "by": "leetrout", "date": "2025-11-17", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "we switched from fargate to EC2 auto scaling group", "excerpt": "Just as an aside for the fargate convo... we switched from fargate to EC2 auto scaling group so we could run a custom AMI that has our container images (which are larger than I like) pre-baked and we went from a ~3 minute startup in fargate to ~30 seconds with the ASG when it's not triggering a scaling action. We're using prefect not Temporal and each prefect flow launches in a discrete ECS task so the waiting added ", "context": "", "use_case": "Running Prefect flow tasks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Deploying Temporal on AWS ECS with Terraform"}]}