Serverless vs containers on AWS: a decision framework

“Serverless” and “containers” are both excellent—when you choose them for the right reasons.

Here’s a simple framework we use to avoid architecture regret.

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Choose serverless when

- traffic is spiky or unpredictable - you want low ops overhead - latency variability is acceptable (or you can control cold starts)

Typical fit:

- event processing - internal APIs - scheduled jobs

Choose containers when

- you need consistent runtime behaviour - you have long-running processes - you need fine-grained control over dependencies

Typical fit:

- complex APIs - background workers - workloads with specialised libraries

The hidden variable: team operating model

If you pick containers, you’re also picking:

- patching cadence - image scanning - deployment discipline - on-call ownership

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How PG Technologies helps

We help you pick the right AWS runtime and ship it safely:

- architecture and trade-off decisions - delivery and CI/CD - security and observability - performance and cost optimisation

Sources

- AWS Lambda: https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/ - Amazon ECS: https://aws.amazon.com/ecs/