Resources
Practical cloud engineering knowledge from our team — architecture guides, service comparisons, best practices, and cost optimization strategies. Free resources for CTOs, architects, and engineering teams building on AWS.
In-depth technical articles on AWS architecture, serverless, security, cost optimization, and cloud engineering best practices.
EC2 On-Demand is not one price — it is a matrix of family, size, OS, tenancy, and region. In us-east-1 (June 2026), a m7g.large Linux instance runs $0.0816/hr while a GPU g5.xlarge is $1.006/hr. Most bill surprises come from wrong family choice, not wrong size.
AWS shipped ECS Express Mode on November 21, 2025 — three inputs (image + two IAM roles) and Express Mode provisions Fargate, ALB, HTTPS, auto scaling, and a *.ecs.*.on.aws URL. Up to 25 services can share one ALB. No Express Mode surcharge.
ElastiCache bills node-hours for Redis/Valkey clusters and ECPUs for Serverless. A cache.r7g.large with two replicas is 3× the primary node cost before data transfer. Serverless wins below ~$800/mo steady cache spend; provisioned nodes win above it.
Fargate bills per vCPU-second and GB-second — not per task hour. A 0.25 vCPU / 0.5 GB task running 24/7 costs ~$9/mo in us-east-1; a 4 vCPU / 16 GB task costs ~$145/mo. ECS on EC2 adds cluster overhead but wins at sustained utilization above ~55%.
A 22-account AWS Organization spent $1.1M/yr on Compute Savings Plans but applied only 61% to production — dev sandboxes burned the commit while prod stayed On-Demand. Group Sharing (April 2026) fixed attribution; the waste was $312k/yr before they restructured purchases.
On June 16, 2026, AWS launched AWS Blocks in public preview — an open-source TypeScript framework with ~20 building blocks that run locally without an AWS account and deploy to production services with zero code changes. No Blocks surcharge; you pay only for underlying AWS services.
CUR 2.0 (generally available 2024, default for new exports in 2025) adds line-item resource IDs and Savings Plan attribution columns Athena needs for serious chargeback. A standard FinOps query pack answers top-10 services, untagged spend, and SP coverage in under 60 seconds.
On June 15, 2026 AWS made Console Private Access work without internet — VPC endpoints route 100% of browser traffic. First-party benchmark: 161 interface endpoints and ~$263/mo for a 12-service 3-AZ pilot in us-east-1.
Objective, detailed comparisons to help you choose the right cloud platform and services for your workloads.
Technical comparison of Amazon Q Business vs ChatGPT Enterprise. Data residency, HIPAA eligibility, IAM permissions, and compliance certifications.
Technical comparison of Aurora Serverless v2 vs Provisioned. ACU pricing, cold start behavior, scaling, and production readiness.
Technical comparison of Bedrock Agents vs Step Functions. AI reasoning vs deterministic execution, cost analysis, and when to use each.
Practical comparison of AWS Bedrock vs SageMaker for CTOs and ML architects. Evaluate generative AI platforms for your use case.
Technical comparison of AWS CloudFront vs Cloudflare. WAF, DDoS protection, edge caching, and pricing for security and performance.
Technical comparison of AWS CodePipeline vs GitHub Actions. IAM integration, scalability, multi-region deployments, and costs.
First-principles comparison of AWS EC2 vs Lambda. Cost crossover points, execution time limits, and architecture decisions.
Practical comparison of Amazon ECS vs EKS. Container orchestration, scaling, operational overhead, and when to choose each.
GuardDuty vs Security Hub on AWS — they are complementary, not redundant. Threat detection feed vs aggregation hub, when each wins, and the cost model for both in 2026.
AWS IAM Identity Center vs Amazon Cognito — workforce SSO vs customer-facing auth. They are not interchangeable. When to use each, federation patterns, and the multi-tenant SaaS architecture.
Detailed comparison of AWS Lambda vs ECS Fargate. Execution time, cold starts, cost, and architectural tradeoffs.
Technical comparison of Amazon RDS vs Aurora — architecture, I/O economics, HA, plus PostgreSQL migration paths (logical replication and LSN pitfalls).
Technical comparison of AWS Step Functions vs EventBridge. Orchestration, event routing, pricing, and architectural patterns.
Objective comparison of AWS vs Microsoft Azure for enterprise workloads. Features, pricing, compliance, and strategic fit.
Practical comparison of AWS vs Google Cloud Platform for startups. Pricing, free tier, ease of use, and startup-friendly services.
AWS WAF vs Network Firewall — they protect different layers and traffic shapes. WAF for HTTP(S), Network Firewall for VPC traffic. When each wins, and the multi-account pattern with Firewall Manager.
Practical guide to migrating from DigitalOcean to AWS. Service equivalents, migration strategy, and cost comparison.
Technical comparison of Amazon DynamoDB vs RDS. Schema flexibility, query patterns, scaling, and when to choose each.
Migration guide from Elastic Email to AWS SES. Covers the dual transactional and marketing product surface, contact list and automation re-platforming, reputation isolation, and the deliverability gains most teams realize after the move.
Compare AWS consulting services, costs, speed, and specialization between FactualMinds and Big 4 consulting firms.
Compare AWS consulting services, GenAI capabilities, managed services, and pricing between FactualMinds and Cloudreach.
Compare AWS consulting approaches, expertise, pricing models, and engagement styles between FactualMinds and Slalom.
Practical guide to migrating from Google Cloud Platform to AWS. Service mapping, architecture changes, and cost analysis.
Practical guide to migrating from Heroku to AWS. Postgres to RDS migration, managed database features, and cost optimization.
Technical migration guide from Mailgun to AWS SES. Email deliverability, SMTP, configuration, and cost comparison.
Honest comparison of MongoDB Atlas vs Amazon DocumentDB. Compatibility, features, pricing, and migration considerations.
Practical guide for engineering teams evaluating the move from Postmark to AWS SES. Email services and cost comparison.
Migration guide for engineers moving from Resend to AWS SES. React Email portability, Audiences and Broadcasts replacements, pricing math, and the full event pipeline you will own after the cutover.
Practical migration guide from SendGrid to AWS SES. Email deliverability setup, features, and infrastructure integration.
Migration guide from SparkPost (now Bird) to AWS SES. Email services, configuration, delivery reliability, and costs.
Instant assessments and calculators — no signup required. Get personalized insights in minutes.
Enter your monthly spend to see your personalized savings estimate. Most customers save 20–40%.
20 questions across all 6 AWS pillars. Get your architecture score and discover hidden risks.
15 questions on data maturity, skills, and infrastructure. Get your AI readiness score.
Compare 1-year vs 3-year Savings Plans ROI against your current On-Demand EC2/RDS spend.
Get an estimated timeline, complexity score, and recommended migration strategy in 3 steps.
15 questions across PHI controls, access, audit logging, encryption. Know your gaps before an audit.
Explore our content by topic to find the guides most relevant to your current challenges.
Strategies for reducing AWS spend — right-sizing, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, architecture patterns, and ongoing cost governance.
Curated hub: HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI DSS frameworks, IAM, threat detection (GuardDuty, Security Hub), data security, multi-account governance, and AI security.
Lambda, Step Functions, DynamoDB, API Gateway — architecture patterns, cost optimization, and production best practices.
Data lake architecture, ETL pipelines, Athena, Redshift, real-time streaming, and business intelligence on AWS.
Deployment pipelines, infrastructure as code, container orchestration, and CI/CD tool comparisons for AWS.
Well-Architected Framework, disaster recovery, multi-account strategy, multi-tenancy, and cloud design patterns.
Nine learning tracks connecting systems fundamentals—TCP, isolation levels, Kafka, consensus—to AWS architecture decisions for senior engineers and architects.
Step-by-step implementation guides for AWS services — from Bedrock RAG pipelines to Karpenter autoscaling, compliance setup, and more.
Our articles share what we know. Our consulting engagements apply that knowledge to your specific environment and challenges.
