Containers
Running containers on AWS: a registry to store images, and two orchestrators to run them.
| Service | Role | Choose when | Key distinction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Elastic Container Registry (ECR) | Stores container images | Always — the registry the orchestrators pull from | Storage, not compute |
| Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) | AWS-native orchestrator | You want the simplest AWS-integrated option | Proprietary, simpler, no control-plane fee |
| Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) | Managed Kubernetes | You already use Kubernetes or need portability | Upstream K8s, portable, hourly per-cluster charge |
- Both orchestrators run containers on EC2 you manage or on serverless AWS Fargate.
- The compute-vs-orchestration split: ECS/EKS decide where and when; Fargate/EC2 provide the capacity.