# Amazon EC2 Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is Amazon EC2 the right Virtual Machine solution for you? Explore 173 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/219781/EC2/reviews --- Amazon EC2 4.7 (173) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/219781/EC2/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of Amazon EC2 Ease of use 4.1 Customer Service 4.1 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews Flexible cloud infrastructure management 91% positive reviews out of 47 Most reviewers indicate cloud computing enables rapid deployment, scalability, and cost savings without hardware maintenance concerns. Jeemish M Industry Principal Consultant, 10,001+ employees. "EC2 has accelerate our journey towards cloud computing by enabling us to provision and tear down infrastructure as needed." Complex and unpredictable pricing 57% negative reviews out of 40 Some reviewers feel pricing is difficult to estimate, with unexpected fees and extra costs for support and resources. vidya P Cloud engineer, 201 - 500 employees. "It can get expensive if not monitored closely on the EC2 usage." Robust managed security features 95% positive reviews out of 22 Most users report security and access control are reliable, flexible, and require minimal manual intervention for protection. Seamless integration with services 100% positive reviews out of 20 Most reviewers describe integrations as straightforward, enabling smooth connections with AWS tools, third-party apps, and automation. Omkar S Backend Developer, 2 - 10 employees. "On top of it it provides smooth scalability and easy integration with other AWS services." ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 173 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use Monica G. Cloud Engineer Telecommunications Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Good virtual machine service, AMI catalog needs work, auto scaling is magic" May 28, 2025 5.0 Overall, good virtual machine service. The initial setup is difficult, but once done the service is reliable. Easy to setup a highly available application with EC2. Pros The Auto Scaling Groups is where the magic happens. This helps with auto-healing and highly available applications. The launch templates are extremely customizable. The user data (pre boot scripts) are helpful. I appreciate the 3rd party integrations, like our CI/CD tool. The integration with auto scaling groups and ALBs are a must. Cons Searching for AMIs in the AWS console is clunky. There should be better ways to search. The initial setup is tricky, but once you build one image and launch an instance, the deployment process gets easier. Occasionally, I will have to stop/start an instance because the underlying host has an issue. Thank goodness for autoscaling. Review Source RR Richard R. IT Support Manager Real Estate Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "EC2 automation/simplicity all in one platform" June 6, 2025 5.0 It is a great tool, easy to use, easy to setup, clonable and each task can have a deedicated instance to run. Pros The EC2 mechanism works great, rent when required, scalable and on demand computing makes this a great platform to use. Cons Whilst it is cost effective, there are times when the cost is prohibitive for some small tasks, but otherwise it works as expected Alternatives considered [Microsoft 365](https://www.capterra.com/p/227157/Microsoft-365/) Reason for choosing Amazon EC2 Cheaper and easier to use, overall a great perfomance boost was provied once implemented Review Source GB Greg B. Software engineer Computer & Network Security Used the software for: 2+ years ### "I was forced to leave after 6 years of happy use" September 15, 2020 2.0 What AWS don't tell you is that on top of your EC2 cost comes a whole range of other hidden costs. Costs that only creep up after you've been using the product for a long time. Almost as if it has been designed this way. Specifically, I ran into trouble with CPU and Disk IO credits. This is not a thing on any other platform. EC2 allows you to "burst" your processing power or disk read/write speed. This is done automatically with no control from the administrator. Once the tokens run out, which is seemingly incalculable, the servers crash. The only way to keep the servers up is to keep spending more money by increasing the tokens (by raising the capacity), even though I didn't need the extra capacity. My servers are running perfectly on another provider now, on the lowest capacity instances, with no concept of "tokens" to worry about. Pros EC2 is so easy to set up. It doesn't require any thought to what is happening "behind the scenes". Cons It doesn't require any thought to what is happening "behind the scenes". When something breaks, you're on your own (without a minimum $2,000/mo support contract). AWS slowly increase the cost of associated tech with no way to understand why. Reason for choosing Amazon EC2 There was a free tier and, on paper, the prices looked the best value. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer MERN stack developer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Scalable and Highly Available EC2 System" February 13, 2025 5.0 When I shift to ec2, it had many features like security groups, auto scaling and load balancer which made my application highly available and it was cost effective. Pros It made my backend very easy to scale and highly available without lagging. Cons It was not beginner friendly had many complex terminology. Switched from [PythonAnywhere](https://www.capterra.com/p/234268/PythonAnywhere/)[Netlify](https://www.capterra.com/p/154989/Netlify/)[Vercel](https://www.capterra.com/p/203626/Vercel/) 1)PythonAnywhere supported only python. 2)Vercel was not ideal for database or long running background tasks like cron, scheduler, etc. 3)Netlify was not suitable for backend application. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Intern Computer Software Used the software for: I used a free trial ### "My first Experience of EC2" February 15, 2025 4.0 I would like to rate it 8 out of 10 as my most of the work got done by using EC2 only. But there are still some complexity in UI as I mentioned above. Pros The thing I liked about EC2 is I can get any operating system image to run my projects. Also without worrying about cpu load I can get as high specifications as I want Cons The UI is little complex as I get to any options when I was just learning it got me too much confused. Alternatives considered [Google Cloud Compute Engine](https://www.capterra.com/p/253623/Google-Cloud-Compute-Engine/) Reason for choosing Amazon EC2 Cause it is more reliable that Google Cloud Compute Engine Switched from [Microsoft Azure](https://www.capterra.com/p/16365/Azure/)[Google Cloud Compute Engine](https://www.capterra.com/p/253623/Google-Cloud-Compute-Engine/)[Google Cloud](https://www.capterra.com/p/268690/Google-Cloud-Platform/) I have done some research and got to know about AWS is at 1st rank in world Review Source Nujan S. Managing Director Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Outstanding in terms of hosting and visual machines. " November 6, 2022 5.0 It's really responsive and there are variety of locations to choose from so, It's basically a best option among others considering the price we pay. Pros AWS's EC2 service is truly excellent. We'll have thousands of applications and operating systems ready to install. It's simple to use when configuring DNS or managing ports. It's incredibly straightforward, thanks to their clean UI. When we install software from the EC2 marketplace, everything is essentially pre-configured. Backup is simple with snapshots, but it will cost you money. We can choose the operating system and get an estimate of how much we'll pay. This will avoid unexpected charges. Cons When you stop and restart an instance on EC2, the IP address changes constantly, which makes setting up DNS records quite inconvenient. There is an elastic IP approach that will prevent such, but I believe they should supply it by default for the same cost of instance. Also, support is quite slow, and we must pay an additional fee for it. Switched from [Microsoft Azure](https://www.capterra.com/p/16365/Azure/) I personally didn't like the UI of azure it's confusing and you can easily expect surprise bill from Azure. Which made me switch to AWS which I find better in comparison. Review Source Samuel C. Engineer Telecommunications Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Cloud Computing that will scale from startups to large businesses" July 15, 2022 5.0 We are realizing the benefits of flexible cloud computing with superb reliability, scalability and uptime. As a startup, we can simply count on EC2 being sufficient on the long term. Pros Amazon EC2 is an extremely flexible cloud computing service. It is modern, complete, integrates easily with all other AWS services and comes at a great price with an ever-decreasing pricing that will simply give the customer more value. If it is your first cloud computing experience, you can start with a template that will facilitate the process of getting started, however, be mindful because templates may tie you up considerably in the future. EC2 is all about standards so you can expect to integrate absolutely everything in your infrastructure with ease. EC2 is the reason why I think bare metal servers do not make a lot of sense nowadays. Speaking about features, you've got them all and EC2 proves to be a nice gateway to keep using other AWS services. At first, it may be intimidating to implement since the interface is still a bit misleading. Once you understand it, you get your money worth by every penny. We started with EC2 almost 8 years ago and I absolutely haven't thought about replacing with an alternative for many years to come. Cons EC2 interface still has a lot of room for improvement. I think that since it is so expansive, fitting everything in concisely in an interface is hard. I think that it has gotten better over time but never to the likes of DigitalOcean that is a superb functional and well-designed UI. Also, documentation is not very developer friendly (have you seen Mailgun's dev docs?) but it serves you well. Something there is documentation that is referring to another version of the service you are intending to use without you having a lot of notice, that's a catch. You should also know that just like Apple's ecosystem, AWS is also playing the same game, very difficult to export things should you ever have the need, so make a commitment or find somewhere else. Alternatives considered [DigitalOcean](https://www.capterra.com/p/205055/DigitalOcean/) Reason for choosing Amazon EC2 Because of the AWS ecosystem apps. Switched from [Atlantic.Net Cloud Platform](https://www.capterra.com/p/248436/AtlanticNet-Cloud-Platform/) We made the switch because EC2 provides way more features and scalability. Review Source vP vidya P. Cloud engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "EC2 is the way to compute on cloud" April 10, 2025 5.0 Overall this is the first of its kind on cloud to provide compute service and it evolved since its introduced to finest levels Pros Amazon EC2 comes with wide range of compute capacity and processors including graviton which are cheaper bundled with performance Cons It can get expensive if not monitored closely on the EC2 usage. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Lead Engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Good Experience" February 5, 2025 5.0 Pros Server setup is so easy with this and also my website response is better with better with large services. Cons Its little bit costly for managing different servers. Switched from [Azure Virtual Machines](https://www.capterra.com/p/246720/Azure-Virtual-Machines/) Downtime is too much over their with azure. Review Source SB Swaibu B. AWS Solution Architecture Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Amazon EC2 service" February 13, 2025 5.0 Amazon EC2 offers flexible, scalable computing power and a wide range of instance options. While it offers strong performance, cost management and instance monitoring require attention. Pros Amazon EC2 offers scalable, on-demand computing power with flexible instance types, making it easy to tailor resources to workloads efficiently. Cons Amazon EC2's pricing can be complex, and managing instances effectively requires careful monitoring to avoid unexpected costs. Review Source HV Harish V. Software Engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "EC2 for scaling business " January 5, 2025 4.0 Pros Scaling up and down the instances of EC2 can be really easy task which can can be cost effective. Best part about it is its ability to turn on or off the instances with just one click. Cons It requires some bit of technical expertise to work with EC2 and we have to apply patches and security updates on regularly. Review Source SN Stéphane N. DevOps Engineer Oil & Energy Used the software for: 2+ years ### "With Amazon EC2 instances you can quickly deploy a proof-of-concept" July 25, 2024 5.0 Pros You only pay for the resources used, while they're running Cons You can't natively see the available size of an EBS volume attached to your instance Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Ass. Engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Best Cloud VM that can be used." August 25, 2022 5.0 My overall experience is very good I would definitly recommend using EC2 to any user whether its a beginner or experienced person anyone can use it ease. Pros I liked Elastice Load Balancer the most cause if there an issue with server the ELB takes care of Auto scaling the server. Cons There is as such no thing that I least liked I genuinely like EC2 that why I use it myself and also in my company. Alternatives considered [Azure Virtual Machines](https://www.capterra.com/p/246720/Azure-Virtual-Machines/) Review Source WI Wassim I. Associate Professor Computer Networking Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Amazon EC2: What Made Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service an Affordable Cloud Paradigm." August 2, 2023 4.0 Great experience. Deploying various types of servers on EC2 virtual machines makes the realization of enterprise applications very simplified. Pros I can't imagine not having Amazon EC2 for managing my development projects, server deployments, and research implementations. Amazon EC2 was the leader in IaaS since the cloud computing inception and it kept proliferating to support more and more cloud services from software services, to IoT, to machine learning, to databases, among many other. After initially setting the registration and authentication with a private/public key pair, creating and managing virtual machines is extremely simple with a streamlined web console. A mainly run my application and database servers on Linux VMs. Thanks to the free-tier in Amazon EC2 even my students can have the chance to inspect with cloud functionality and services using Amazon EC2. Very cost effective even with the paid tiers. Cons Better support of secure data processing in the cloud could be an enhancement that Amazon can invest in. Homomorphic encryption techniques for secure processing of encrypted data is improving and Amazon can be leading the research efforts on this front. Moreover, hardware-based data privacy mechanisms such as those employing cryptographic coprocessors in the cloud can be also a track to invest in. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Industry Principal Consultant Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "A great tool for cloud computing" June 9, 2023 5.0 EC2 has accelerate our journey towards cloud computing by enabling us to provision and tear down infrastructure as needed. Pros pay as you go pricing, High I/O and GPU compute based instances, Elastic IP addresses, Pause and resume instances Cons AWS being leaders in cloud computing, don't see much missing features but they can improve on better training materials for beginners of EC2 service. Alternatives considered [Microsoft Azure](https://www.capterra.com/p/16365/Azure/) Reason for choosing Amazon EC2 Better product features Review Source AK Ali K. Freelancer Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Amazon ec2 review" August 24, 2022 5.0 I'm quite satisfied with amazon ec2 as my cloud application server. Pros I like how customizable its instances are and the variety that it has is also very great. Cons The complexity which one encounters at first is a bit frustrating. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer MERN Developer Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Amazon EC2" December 5, 2023 4.0 Pros Amazon EC2 is one of the best web service for flexible cloud computing which supports the deploy of virtual machines so fast. Amazon EC2 download and upload speed is very fast along with secure and reliable in or out of network accessibility. In our office we use it as a VM for running different product on it. Cons At first user can fell complex so learning to use Amazon EC2 can take some time but overall service is best. Review Source EB Eric B. Chief Product Officer Research Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Amazon EC2 is the best option available for those needing massive compute power and great uptime" January 12, 2022 5.0 For many years, we took in enormous amounts of data from social media networks and we'd run our APIs against them to understand personality, sentiment and emotions expressed in the content. EC2 was a huge part of our processing power and it was reliable, secure, and helped us deliver on our goals. Pros The ability to scale up and down our use of the platform is the best feature. We consume thousands of channels of content for ETL and regardless of our ask, EC2 has handled our loads extremely well. Cons Setup in the AWS environment can be unintuitive at times, and byzantine at the worst. AWS could definitely do better with some easier means for casually technological teams to make use of the powerhouse toolset. Reason for choosing Amazon EC2 Pricing was the main reason we chose it, plus also the AWS credits offered to us through our relationships with VCs. Review Source Shubham K. Cloud Engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Amazon EC2 - My favourite service in AWS." February 7, 2023 5.0 my overall experience has been a great one so far Pros It provide best firewall and security features. Cons I didn't find any drawback as of now. all good. Alternatives considered [Google Cloud Compute Engine](https://www.capterra.com/p/253623/Google-Cloud-Compute-Engine/) Review Source ST Sophia T. Software Development Engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 2+ years ### "The most elastic platform available." August 28, 2019 5.0 I never had problems with this platform, it is really very complete and useful, it has an extremely high level of security, it also integrates very easily and natively with other aws tools, it is a wonderful multipurpose tool, which can be used with or without the other tools of aws. Pros This tool is extremely versatile, serves as a vps, and as a base instance for many other aws tools, it allows me to connect to external aws platforms simply, it has a high level of configuration, customization and security. I can specifically choose each hardware component that is needed according to the needs of the projects, and the platform is ready to use in a few minutes, in addition to having a very extensive configuration panel, with many configurations, in addition to a console, which allows Work through commands directly, without opening the instance, its download and upload speed is very high and quite stable. Cons It is difficult for me to think of a negative aspect on this platform, however, what must be taken into account is that it is a fairly complete and complex tool to use, so the learning curve is quite steep. Review Source Pawe W. Software Engineer Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Cloud computing done easy with EC2" August 9, 2022 5.0 I really enjoyed using EC2 and AWS overall, I have used it for many of my projects and it worked seamlessly. Pros EC2 was the core infrastructure in the Platform I have developed for a few months. It has provided computing sources for a Web App that was used extensively by hundreds of clients. It was reliable (no downtimes were recorded) and quite easy to set up. We have used different configurations of EC2 to meet our efficiency needs Cons The learning curve for EC2 and AWS overall is quite steep, so the first steps were quite hard, but it was worth the effort to learn administrating EC2. Alternatives considered [Google Cloud](https://www.capterra.com/p/268690/Google-Cloud-Platform/) Reason for choosing Amazon EC2 Previous experience with AWS platform. Review Source AV Arreybesong V. Coder Computer Software Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Amazon review " February 3, 2024 5.0 Pros Here it helps in the interactions with the machine for easy manipulation Cons Since I have been using it I have not seen the difficulties about it Review Source RS Rajshekhar S. Solution engineer Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Suitable option to develop and deploy your applications faster" May 7, 2022 4.0 It is very helpful service. Many organisations I have worked with have been using this. Pros It provides a variety of options to create machines with different type of configurations. It is safe, secure and scalable. I started using this service to learn some features. Cons Some time, my machine stayed open and I did not know about it. After some time I got a mail with certain amount of bill. I was using a free service with limited hours. AWS should have alerted me if I was going over the limit. Review Source CS Caroline S. Software Engineer Computer Software Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Simple access and no maintenance cost" May 30, 2019 4.0 Amazon EC2 has made it possible to carry out the implementation of services or applications in the cloud, thus saving time and money and being able to please any customer with their needs and all for a really fair price. Pros This Amazon tool is really useful since it has great advantages that is why I like it for several reasons being the main one that is extremely flexible, easy to use, easy to access, requires no maintenance and only pays for what is used, account with an interface that is very intuitive in addition to that in case of having doubts about it provides tutorials or a really compressible documentation so there is no way of not being able to understand its use, also it can be customized to cover each one of the needs that search the user thus being able to host any application, or web service of business or personal interest. Cons This tool works very well so finding faults as such is difficult, the only drawback is that locating a support team directly can be complicated but it is not impossible. Review Source kY krishna Y. software developer Computer Software Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "AWS EC2 - amazon cloud servers my review" July 8, 2022 4.0 overall experience with Amazon EC2 is satisfactory as they are easy to launch and use which reduces time to implement server but just keep an eye on the price and monitoring matrices . Pros AWS EC2 instances are easy to launch and use we can use any OS we need , AMI are available and we can directly launch them from dash board on AWS cloud . all type of instance are available as per the requirement like general purpose , and instances which are optimised in computation , Memory and Ram can be selected . EBS volume can be attached according to requirement . Cons when upgrade is required then we have to separately upgrade instance and EBS volume and run command to attach the EBS volume . 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