Amazon Web Services (AWS) vs AWS Lambda (2026): Pricing, Features & Verdict
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is our pick, scoring 7.9/10 against 7.6/10 for AWS Lambda on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria. Its biggest advantage: higher Customization score (10/10 vs 7/10). For 10 users, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Lambda are both free; both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Lambda have a free plan.
Last updated: November 2026
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
7.9/10
Amazon's public cloud platform, with over 200 pay-as-you-go services for compute, storage, databases, networking and AI, used by startups through large enterprises and governments.
AWS Lambda
7.6/10
AWS Lambda is Amazon's serverless compute service. It runs event-driven code without servers to manage and charges per request and per GB-second of compute.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
| Feature | | A AWS Lambda |
|---|---|---|
| Scores | ||
| Overall Rating | 7.9/10 | 7.6/10 |
| Integration | 10/10 | 9/10 |
| Support | 6/10 | 6/10 |
| Cost | 5/10 | 7/10 |
| Customization | 10/10 | 7/10 |
| Security | 9/10 | 9/10 |
| Reliability | 9/10 | 8/10 |
| Ease of Use | 4/10 | 6/10 |
| Analytics | 8/10 | 7/10 |
| Scalability | 10/10 | 9/10 |
| Pricing | ||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Cheapest paid plan | Contact for pricing | Contact for pricing |
| Estimated cost for 10 users | Free Free plan | Free Free tier |
| Features | ||
| API and CLI | ||
| Multiple Regions | ||
| Serverless Functions | ||
| Uptime SLA | ||
| Cloud Compute | Not listed | |
| Content Delivery Network | Not listed | |
| Dedicated Servers | Not listed | |
| Managed Databases | Not listed | |
| Managed Kubernetes | Not listed | |
| Managed WordPress | Not listed | |
| Object Storage | Not listed | |
| Shared Hosting | Not listed | |
| VPS Hosting | Not listed | |
Amazon Web Services (AWS) vs AWS Lambda cost by team size
Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Lambda cost the same at every team size we checked.
| Team size | Amazon Web Services (AWS) | AWS Lambda |
|---|---|---|
| 1 user | FreeFree plan | FreeFree tier |
| 5 users | FreeFree plan | FreeFree tier |
| 10 users | FreeFree plan | FreeFree tier |
| 25 users | FreeFree plan | FreeFree tier |
| 50 users | FreeFree plan | FreeFree tier |
The plan that fits each team size, billed monthly, before add-ons and usage charges. Each cost opens that tool's pricing calculator for the team size.
Who Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Lambda suit
Amazon Web Services (AWS) fits enterprise better than AWS Lambda.
| Audience | Amazon Web Services (AWS) | AWS Lambda |
|---|---|---|
| Enterprise | 10/10Enterprise and Unified Operations support tiers and a broad compliance and service range are aimed at large organisations. | 8/10It holds SOC, HIPAA, PCI, and ISO certifications and offers a regional uptime SLA. |
| SaaS Companies | 9/10Multi-region infrastructure and managed services support running production SaaS workloads. | 8/10It scales automatically and integrates deeply with AWS services for event-driven backends. |
| Small Business | 5/10It is affordable at low usage, but complex billing and setup can overwhelm non-technical small teams. | 4/10It needs development skills and AWS knowledge to use well. |
| Developers | 9/10The full API, CLI and SDK tooling and the breadth of services suit engineers, though the learning curve is steep. | 9/10It is a code-first serverless runtime that supports many languages and container images. |
| Startups | 8/10The free plan credits and pay-as-you-go billing let startups begin cheaply and scale, which G2 reviewers note. | 8/10The pay-per-use model and monthly free tier keep costs low at low traffic. |
| Government | 8/10AWS runs dedicated GovCloud regions, which have their own support pricing. | Not rated |
Which One Should You Choose?
Why choose Amazon Web Services (AWS)
- Higher Customization score (10/10 vs 7/10)
- Higher Integration score (10/10 vs 9/10)
- Better fit for enterprise (10/10 vs 8/10)
AWhy choose AWS Lambda
- Higher Cost score (7/10 vs 5/10)
- Higher Ease of Use score (6/10 vs 4/10)
Pros & Cons
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Pros
- The service catalogue is unusually broad, with over 200 services across 38 regions, so most infrastructure needs can be met on one platform.
- EC2 has a 99.99% region-level SLA with credits of up to 100%, and instances unavailable for more than six minutes in an hour are not billed for that hour.
- The free plan gives up to $200 in credits, and more than 30 always-free services let new teams experiment at low cost.
- Support scales from a $29 minimum up to dedicated Enterprise and Unified Operations tiers for mission-critical workloads.
- G2 rates it 4.4 across more than 17,000 reviews, and reviewers praise its scalability and global reach.
Cons
- Reviewers widely cite a steep learning curve across the console and services.
- Usage pricing is complex and can produce unexpected bills unless spend is monitored closely.
- Paid support is billed as a percentage of total AWS spend, so support costs rise with usage.
- A July 2025 billing console bug showed customers estimated charges in the billions, which hurt trust in its cost tooling.
AAWS Lambda
Pros
- The permanent free tier of 1 million requests and 400,000 GB-seconds a month makes low-traffic workloads nearly free.
- It scales automatically, and G2 reviewers often praise this.
- It triggers natively from other AWS services and sends logs, metrics, and traces to CloudWatch and X-Ray automatically.
- Functions run on dedicated Nitro-based compute, and the service holds SOC, HIPAA, PCI, and ISO certifications.
- SnapStart and Provisioned Concurrency give options for reducing cold-start latency.
Cons
- Each invocation is capped at 15 minutes and 10 GB of memory, so it does not suit long or heavy jobs.
- Function code plus layers is limited to 250 MB unzipped.
- Since August 2025 the initialization phase is billed, which raises costs for functions with slow startup such as Java or .NET.
- Reviewers say debugging is hard because they depend on logs in an abstracted environment.
- Costs can be hard to predict once third-party tools and architectural complexity are added.
Not sold on either?
Frequently Asked Questions
Amazon Web Services (AWS) scores higher on our Hosting & Infrastructure criteria: 7.9/10 against 7.6/10 for AWS Lambda. The largest gap is in Customization: 10/10 for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and 7/10 for AWS Lambda.
Both are free for 10 users.
Yes, both Amazon Web Services (AWS) and AWS Lambda have a free plan.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the better fit for enterprise: we rate it 10/10 for them, against 8/10 for AWS Lambda.
