Amazon EC2 Container Service vs Nomad

Overview

Amazon EC2 Container Service

Stacks14.6K

Followers10.2K

Votes325

Nomad

Stacks256

Followers344

Votes32

GitHub Stars15.9K

Forks2.0K

Amazon EC2 Container Service vs Nomad: What are the differences?

**Introduction:**

Scalability: The key difference between Amazon EC2 Container Service and Nomad lies in their scalability. Amazon EC2 Container Service is highly scalable, allowing users to easily scale their containerized applications up or down based on demand. In contrast, Nomad is designed to be lightweight and perform well on smaller deployments, making it more suitable for smaller-scale applications or environments.
Supported Platforms: Another important difference is the supported platforms. Amazon EC2 Container Service is tightly integrated with other AWS services, offering a seamless experience for users already utilizing the AWS ecosystem. On the other hand, Nomad is platform-agnostic and can run on any cloud provider or on-premises, providing more flexibility for users who may have multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments.
Orchestration Abilities: Amazon EC2 Container Service has robust orchestration capabilities, allowing users to easily manage, scale, and deploy containers across a cluster of EC2 instances. Nomad, while also offering orchestration features, focuses more on simplicity and ease of use, making it a good choice for users looking for a straightforward container management solution without the complexity of other orchestration tools.
Community Support: Nomad is developed and maintained by HashiCorp, a company known for its robust community support and active open-source contributions. This means that users of Nomad can benefit from a strong community that offers assistance, resources, and regular updates. In contrast, Amazon EC2 Container Service, being a proprietary service of AWS, may have limitations in terms of community support and resources outside of the AWS ecosystem.
Cost Considerations: Cost is another crucial difference between Amazon EC2 Container Service and Nomad. Amazon EC2 Container Service is a pay-as-you-go service, meaning users pay for the computing resources they use. Nomad, being an open-source tool, is free to use, allowing users to save on container orchestration costs, especially for smaller deployments or startups.

In Summary, Amazon EC2 Container Service and Nomad differ in terms of scalability, supported platforms, orchestration abilities, community support, and cost considerations.

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Advice on Amazon EC2 Container Service, Nomad

Andres

Lead Senior Software Engineer at InTouch Technology

Jun 3, 2020

Decided

If you want to integrate your cluster and control end to end your pipeline with AWS tools like ECR and Code Pipeline your best option is ECS using a EC2 instance. There are pros and cons but it's easier to integrate using cloud formation templates and visual UI for approvals, etc. ECS is free, you need to pay only for the EC2 instance but unfortunately, it is not standard then you cannot use standard tools to see and manage your Kubernetes.
EKS in the other hand uses standard Kubernates definitions but you need to pay for the service and also for the EC2 instance(s) you have in your cluster.

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Detailed Comparison

Amazon EC2 Container Service	Nomad
Amazon EC2 Container Service lets you launch and stop container-enabled applications with simple API calls, allows you to query the state of your cluster from a centralized service, and gives you access to many familiar Amazon EC2 features like security groups, EBS volumes and IAM roles.	Nomad is a cluster manager, designed for both long lived services and short lived batch processing workloads. Developers use a declarative job specification to submit work, and Nomad ensures constraints are satisfied and resource utilization is optimized by efficient task packing. Nomad supports all major operating systems and virtualized, containerized, or standalone applications.
Docker Compatibility;Managed Clusters;Programmatic Control;Task Definitions;Scheduler;Docker Repository	Handles the scheduling and upgrading of the applications over time; With built-in dry-run execution, Nomad shows what scheduling decisions it will take before it takes them. Operators can approve or deny these changes to create a safe and reproducible workflow; Nomad runs applications and ensures they keep running in failure scenarios. In addition to long-running services, Nomad can schedule batch jobs, distributed cron jobs, and parameterized jobs; Stream logs, send signals, and interact with the file system of scheduled applications. These operator-friendly commands bring the familiar debugging tools to a scheduled world
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 15.9K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 2.0K
Stacks 14.6K	Stacks 256
Followers 10.2K	Followers 344
Votes 325	Votes 32
Pros & Cons
Pros 100 Backed by amazon 72 Familiar to ec2 53 Cluster based 42 Simple API 26 Iam roles	Pros 7 Built in Consul integration 6 Easy setup 4 Bult-in Vault integration 3 Built-in federation support 2 Autoscaling support Cons 3 Easy to start with 1 Small comunity 1 HCL language for configuration, an unpopular DSL
Integrations
Docker Amazon EC2	Consul Docker Vault

What are some alternatives to Amazon EC2 Container Service, Nomad?

Google Kubernetes Engine

Container Engine takes care of provisioning and maintaining the underlying virtual machine cluster, scaling your application, and operational logistics like logging, monitoring, and health management.

Containerum

Containerum is built to aid cluster management, teamwork and resource allocation. Containerum runs on top of any Kubernetes cluster and provides a friendly Web UI for cluster management.

Apache Mesos

Apache Mesos is a cluster manager that simplifies the complexity of running applications on a shared pool of servers.

DC/OS

Unlike traditional operating systems, DC/OS spans multiple machines within a network, aggregating their resources to maximize utilization by distributed applications.

Azure Container Service

Azure Container Service optimizes the configuration of popular open source tools and technologies specifically for Azure. You get an open solution that offers portability for both your containers and your application configuration. You select the size, the number of hosts, and choice of orchestrator tools, and Container Service handles everything else.

Docker Cloud

Docker Cloud is the best way to deploy and manage Dockerized applications. Docker Cloud makes it easy for new Docker users to manage and deploy the full spectrum of applications, from single container apps to distributed microservices stacks, to any cloud or on-premises infrastructure.

Mesosphere

Mesosphere offers a layer of software that organizes your machines, VMs, and cloud instances and lets applications draw from a single pool of intelligently- and dynamically-allocated resources, increasing efficiency and reducing operational complexity.

Amazon EKS

Amazon Elastic Container Service for Kubernetes (Amazon EKS) is a managed service that makes it easy for you to run Kubernetes on AWS without needing to install and operate your own Kubernetes clusters.

Gardener

Many Open Source tools exist which help in creating and updating single Kubernetes clusters. However, the more clusters you need the harder it becomes to operate, monitor, manage and keep all of them alive and up-to-date. And that is exactly what project Gardener focuses on.

instainer

InstaDocker is a Docker container hosting service which allows run any Docker container on the cloud instantly.

Related Comparisons

Amazon EC2 Container Service vs Nomad: What are the differences?

**Introduction:**

Scalability: The key difference between Amazon EC2 Container Service and Nomad lies in their scalability. Amazon EC2 Container Service is highly scalable, allowing users to easily scale their containerized applications up or down based on demand. In contrast, Nomad is designed to be lightweight and perform well on smaller deployments, making it more suitable for smaller-scale applications or environments.
Supported Platforms: Another important difference is the supported platforms. Amazon EC2 Container Service is tightly integrated with other AWS services, offering a seamless experience for users already utilizing the AWS ecosystem. On the other hand, Nomad is platform-agnostic and can run on any cloud provider or on-premises, providing more flexibility for users who may have multi-cloud or hybrid cloud environments.
Orchestration Abilities: Amazon EC2 Container Service has robust orchestration capabilities, allowing users to easily manage, scale, and deploy containers across a cluster of EC2 instances. Nomad, while also offering orchestration features, focuses more on simplicity and ease of use, making it a good choice for users looking for a straightforward container management solution without the complexity of other orchestration tools.
Community Support: Nomad is developed and maintained by HashiCorp, a company known for its robust community support and active open-source contributions. This means that users of Nomad can benefit from a strong community that offers assistance, resources, and regular updates. In contrast, Amazon EC2 Container Service, being a proprietary service of AWS, may have limitations in terms of community support and resources outside of the AWS ecosystem.
Cost Considerations: Cost is another crucial difference between Amazon EC2 Container Service and Nomad. Amazon EC2 Container Service is a pay-as-you-go service, meaning users pay for the computing resources they use. Nomad, being an open-source tool, is free to use, allowing users to save on container orchestration costs, especially for smaller deployments or startups.

In Summary, Amazon EC2 Container Service and Nomad differ in terms of scalability, supported platforms, orchestration abilities, community support, and cost considerations.

Amazon EC2 Container Service vs Nomad

Overview