Fargate vs Lambda: Everything You Need to Know About AWS Serverless

Are Fargate and Lambda serverless?

Yes, both are serverless services.

But… they don’t mean the same thing, and they aren’t used for the same needs.

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1. Definition of “Serverless” (in plain English):

Serverless = you don’t have to manage any servers.

You don’t configure a machine, an operating system, or updates. You just focus on your code or your container, and AWS takes care of the rest.

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Comparison of the serverless model:

	AWS Lambda	AWS Fargate
Serverless?	Yes	Yes
Do you manage a server?	No	No
What do you deploy?	A function	A Docker container
Automatic scaling?	Yes	Yes
Pay-as-you-go?	Yes (per invocation and per duration)	Yes (per second or minute of runtime)
Execution length	Short (up to 15 min max)	Long (hours, days…)
Event-triggered?	Yes (e.g., S3, API Gateway…)	No (it’s an app that runs or listens)
Ideal for?	Small functions, automations	Containerized web apps/APIs

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Level of completeness (which one is the most “complete”?)

If you want to know which one lets you do more:

• Fargate is more complete because it lets you run any type of application, as if you had a traditional server (but without having to take care of it).
• Lambda is more limited but extremely simple for running specific tasks.

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Clear summary:

You want to…	Use…
Run a function when an event occurs (sending an email, processing an image)	Lambda
Deploy a full API, a Node, Python, etc. backend in a container	Fargate