Top 10 Differences Between Lambda and Fargate

April 19, 2024 | BLOGS

Introduction

In the fast-changing business world of Lambda cloud computing, AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate are two top-class services by Amazon Web Services. Both have upgraded the way developers deploy and manage their applications. AWS Lambda and AWS Farget are both different as they are used for different purposes. Also, they allow a variety of uses in different cases. Let us understand more about AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate. Also, we will focus on their top uses in 2024 and the top 10 differences between both. This information will help you to select the right service as per your requirements.

What is AWS Lambda and its Top 6 Uses in 2024?

1. AWS Lambda: It is a serverless computing service. This service works effectively to allow running your code in response to events. It automatically manages the underlying compute resources as well. Its unique design, configurations and features effortlessly simplify the process of building applications. Also, applications built by AWS Lambda are very quick to response to any new information.

2. Event-Driven Applications: An auto change in the process affects the change in data within S3buckets. The use of AWS Lambda updates to DynamoDB tables or responds to user actions in web applications.

3. Real-Time File Processing: The use of AWS Lambda automatically triggers code to process files just after they are uploaded to AWS S3. This quick response makes AWS Lambda ideal for image resizing process. It is also helpful in file transformations and data validation.

4. Real-Time Stream Processing: It effectively analyzes streaming data for real-time information by using AWS Kinesis. AWS Lambda functions can process logs, transactions, and social media feeds. Through all these AWS Lambda provides real-time analytics.

5. Automated Backups and Everyday Tasks: Scheduling AWS Lambda functions helps well to perform routine IT tasks. These tasks may include database backups, log file rotation, and application performance checks.

6. Serverless APIs: AWS Lambda and Amazon API Gateway allow to build fully managed serverless APIs. These API are known for reducing the requirement for traditional server management. You can do all that even by handling scaling, patching and administration and more tasks.

What is AWS Fargate and its Top 5 Uses in 2024?

AWS Fargate is a serverless compute engine that works for both Amazon Elastic Container Service and Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service. Fargate effectively eliminates the requirement to manage servers. It allows you to focus on designing and building your applications. Let us know what are its top 5 uses:

Microservices Applications: It easily deploys and manages microservices applications. It performs efficiently without any challenges of server management. Fargate is also known for scaling computational resources as per your requirement.
Batch Processing: Fragate runs batch computing workloads without provisioning the infrastructure. That automatically optimizes your costs and efficiency.
Application Modernization: Fargate provides the migration of legacy applications. That allows a flawless transition to modern and cloud-native architectures.
Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) Pipelines: It automates your deployment pipelines. With automation your pipelines perform faster and release reliable software.
Machine Learning Model Inference: Fargate deploys machine learning models as containers. These containers scale up and scale down your resources according to the demand. Fargate offers all those benefits without any manual interference.

Top 10 Differences Between Lambda and Fargate:

Compute Model: Lambda provides function-as-a-service. It makes it possible to run codes automatically by responding to the triggers. Fargate offers container-as-a-service. This service allows running containers without any requirement of server management or cluster management.
Scaling: Lambda performs automatically to scale by running multiple instances of your function in parallel. Fargate performs scaling at the task level. It requires manual scaling policies for ECS and EKS services.
Pricing Model: Lambda charges may vary as per the changes in the number of requests and the duration of code execution. Fargate prices are affected by the allocated vCPU and memory resources per container instance.
Startup Time: The design of Lambda makes its function much smarter. Due to its design, it takes less startup time for short-lived, event-triggered functions. Fargate is faster but it may take longer startup times for containers.
State Management: AWS Lambda functions are stateless, and they can manage every invocation independently. On the other hand, Fargate can run stateful applications using persistent storage options, for example Amazon EFS.
Maximum Execution Duration: Lambda functions work with a maximum execution time limit. This time limit can force long-running processes. Fargate tasks can run constantly. So Fargate tasks become more suitable for tasks with longer durations.
Runtime Environment: Lambda supports specific runtime environments. These environments are predefined by AWS. But Fargate offers more flexibility and allows you to define your container’s runtime environment.
Integrated Services: Lambda integrates properly with AWS services, for example S3, DynamoDB, and API Gateway. These AWS services support event-based processing. Fargate integrates with ECS and EKS effectively for container management and more.
Deployment Complexity: Lambda is very easy to deploy for small-scale and event-based workflows. Fargate requires bigger setup and configuration and serves large-scale applications as well.
Use Cases: Lambda is a good option to choose for executing small and short-lived tasks for events. Fargate is a better option for tough and challenging applications. Also, it performs the best for the applications that require long-running processes and specific runtime configurations.

It is clear that AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate solve your different types of purposes. They both provide top-in-class advantages for cloud-based application deployment. Lambda is the best match for light and event-based processes that provide benefits of fast scalability. On the other hand, Fargate is the best choice for more complicated applications that require a long runtime and flexibility. So, it is up to your purpose. Choose wisely to enjoy the benefits of any of the two.

Conclusion

Choosing anyone out of AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate depends on your specific requirement. You must focus on the factors, for example challenges, execution time, and the type of tasks. By understanding these small but important differences between these two services, you as a developer or architect can make informed decisions. Also, you can use the best of AWS’s Lambda cloud capabilities to build efficient, scalable, and cost-effective solutions.