AWS Amplify vs Elastic Beanstalk: A Detailed Pricing Comparison with Real-World Examples

Understanding the cost implications of choosing between AWS Amplify and Elastic Beanstalk is crucial for project planning. Let’s break down the pricing with practical examples and different application scenarios.

Cost Components Overview

AWS Amplify Pricing Components

• Build minutes
• Hosting storage
• Data served
• Lambda function execution
• API calls
• Authentication users
• Database storage and operations
• Real-time subscriptions

Elastic Beanstalk Pricing Components

• EC2 instances
• Load Balancer
• S3 bucket storage
• CloudWatch monitoring
• Data transfer
• Additional service costs

Application Scenarios and Pricing Comparison

Small Application Example: Personal Blog

Traffic: 10,000 visitors/month Storage: 1GB Features: Blog posts, comments, authentication

Amplify Costs

Hosting:
- Storage: $0.023/GB × 1GB = $0.023
- Data Transfer: 50GB × $0.15/GB = $7.50
- Build Minutes: 100 minutes × $0.01 = $1.00

Authentication:
- 1,000 MAU = Free tier

API (AppSync):
- 1M requests = Free tier

Lambda:
- 1M requests × 128MB × 100ms = Free tier

Total: ~$8.52/month

Elastic Beanstalk Costs

EC2 (t3.micro):
- On-demand: $0.0104/hour × 730 hours = $7.59

Load Balancer:
- Application Load Balancer: $0.0225/hour × 730 = $16.43

S3:
- Storage: 1GB × $0.023 = $0.023
- Requests: Minimal

CloudWatch:
- Basic Monitoring: Free
- Detailed Monitoring: Not needed

Total: ~$24.04/month

Medium Application Example: E-commerce Site

Traffic: 100,000 visitors/month Storage: 50GB Features: Product catalog, user accounts, orders, payment processing

Amplify Costs

Hosting:
- Storage: $0.023/GB × 50GB = $1.15
- Data Transfer: 500GB × $0.15/GB = $75.00
- Build Minutes: 200 minutes × $0.01 = $2.00

Authentication:
- 10,000 MAU = $0.0485/user × 10,000 = $485.00

API (AppSync):
- 10M requests = $4.00/million × 10 = $40.00

Lambda:
- 10M requests × 256MB × 200ms = $30.00

DynamoDB:
- 25GB storage = $0.25/GB × 25 = $6.25
- 5M write requests = $1.25/million × 5 = $6.25
- 20M read requests = $0.25/million × 20 = $5.00

Total: ~$650.65/month

Elastic Beanstalk Costs

EC2 (2 × t3.small):
- On-demand: $0.0208/hour × 730 × 2 = $30.37

Load Balancer:
- Application Load Balancer: $0.0225/hour × 730 = $16.43

RDS (db.t3.small):
- On-demand: $0.034/hour × 730 = $24.82
- Storage: 50GB × $0.115 = $5.75

S3:
- Storage: 50GB × $0.023 = $1.15
- Requests: $0.0004/1000 × 1000 = $0.40

CloudWatch:
- Basic Monitoring: Free
- Detailed Monitoring: $2.10/instance × 2 = $4.20

Total: ~$83.12/month

Large Application Example: SaaS Platform

Traffic: 1,000,000 visitors/month Storage: 500GB Features: Real-time analytics, ML processing, video processing

Amplify Costs

Hosting:
- Storage: $0.023/GB × 500GB = $11.50
- Data Transfer: 5TB × $0.15/GB = $768.00
- Build Minutes: 500 minutes × $0.01 = $5.00

Authentication:
- 100,000 MAU = $0.0485/user × 100,000 = $4,850.00

API (AppSync):
- 100M requests = $4.00/million × 100 = $400.00

Lambda:
- 100M requests × 1GB × 300ms = $500.00

DynamoDB:
- 250GB storage = $0.25/GB × 250 = $62.50
- 50M write requests = $1.25/million × 50 = $62.50
- 200M read requests = $0.25/million × 200 = $50.00

Total: ~$6,709.50/month

Elastic Beanstalk Costs

EC2 (4 × t3.xlarge):
- On-demand: $0.1664/hour × 730 × 4 = $485.89

Load Balancer:
- Application Load Balancer: $0.0225/hour × 730 = $16.43

RDS (db.r5.xlarge):
- On-demand: $0.479/hour × 730 = $349.67
- Storage: 500GB × $0.115 = $57.50

ElastiCache (cache.r5.large):
- On-demand: $0.216/hour × 730 = $157.68

S3:
- Storage: 500GB × $0.023 = $11.50
- Requests: $0.0004/1000 × 10000 = $4.00

CloudWatch:
- Basic Monitoring: Free
- Detailed Monitoring: $2.10/instance × 4 = $8.40

Total: ~$1,091.07/month

Application Types and Cost Considerations

Best for Amplify (Cost-Effective)

1. Static Websites

   • Blog sites
   • Portfolio websites
   • Marketing landing pages
   • Documentation sites

2. JAMstack Applications

   • Content-driven websites
   • Progressive Web Apps
   • Static e-commerce sites

3. Mobile Applications

   • Consumer apps
   • Mobile-first applications
   • Apps requiring offline sync

Best for Elastic Beanstalk (Cost-Effective)

1. Traditional Web Applications

   • Enterprise applications
   • Legacy system migrations
   • Monolithic applications

2. High-Compute Applications

   • Data processing systems
   • Batch processing applications
   • Scientific computing

3. Consistent Load Applications

   • Internal business tools
   • B2B applications
   • 24/7 services

Cost Optimization Strategies

Amplify

1. Build Optimization

   • Minimize build minutes
   • Use build caching
   • Optimize dependencies

2. Lambda Optimization

   • Right-size memory allocation
   • Optimize function duration
   • Use provisioned concurrency when needed

3. Storage Optimization

   • Implement efficient caching
   • Use compression
   • Clean up unused resources

Elastic Beanstalk

1. Instance Optimization

   • Use Spot Instances where possible
   • Implement auto-scaling
   • Choose right instance types

2. Database Optimization

   • Use read replicas effectively
   • Implement caching
   • Choose appropriate storage types

3. Monitoring Optimization

   • Use basic monitoring where possible
   • Set up cost alerts
   • Regular resource cleanup

Conclusion

The pricing comparison reveals that:

1. Small Applications

   • Amplify is more cost-effective for small, static sites
   • Elastic Beanstalk has higher fixed costs but more predictable pricing

2. Medium Applications

   • Amplify costs can increase significantly with authentication and API usage
   • Elastic Beanstalk provides better value for consistent workloads

3. Large Applications

   • Amplify costs can be substantial with high authentication and API usage
   • Elastic Beanstalk becomes more cost-effective for large, compute-intensive applications

Choose based on:

• Application type and architecture
• Expected traffic patterns
• Feature requirements
• Team expertise
• Long-term scalability needs

Remember that these calculations are examples, and actual costs will vary based on specific usage patterns, regions, and implementation details.