Google Cloud Run (GCR) vs Azure Container Instances (ACI) vs AWS ECS with Fargate

Should we use managed Containers as a Service (CaaS)? That must be the most crucial question we should try to answer. Unfortunately, it is hard to provide a universal answer since the solutions differ significantly from one provider to another. CaaS can be described as wild west with solutions ranging from amazing to useless.

Before we attempt to answer the big question, let's go through some of the things we learned by exploring Google Cloud Run, AWS ECS with Fargate, and Azure Container Instances.

[attainconsult]

great summary basically the same conclusion we have reached

[LuisGestosoMuñoz]

This video is just amazing. It solved all my doubts in 16 mins after 2 hours of searching the internet without finding clarity. Thanks a lot

[ducklinz]

You have explained in 16 mins what would have taken me hours to figure out. Thank you! Excellent content.

[cloud.architect.]

Very well thought out. Thank you for taking the time to present this.

[GUIHTD]

Very well spoken. Clear and concise. Thank you!

[biropa]

I watched some Youtube: Cloud Next '18-'20 presentations and now I understand this, thanks, you are great! I now know Cloud Run adds a server after every 100 requests auto-magically.

[viciouz]

Great explanation. Thank you. I think with AWS fargate for ECS, we can consider this as serveless.

[JackReacher]

What are your views on observability when using ECS Fargate to deploy your apps?
What would be the preferred way container insights, managed prometheus, self hosted prometheus or something else?

[bobuputheeckal]

Can you do a video, serverless vs containerized clustering? What are the best use cases for each approach.

[AndreasWest]

Victor, you're hammering down on the point that it's impossible with Fargate to stop all instances, I get that. But you left out the point of cold start completely in your review. Yes, it's nice to have no service running and hence not to pay. But as you can't predict when you backend is used, it will surely create problems and a bad UX when the cold start is too long. Can you please comment on how long it will take for GCR to go from 0 instances to 1? Thank you

[mikeparaskevopoulos]

Great video and article. I was wondering though, because this is already 3 months old, did AWS change something ? Because they are claiming you only pay what you use (Scale to zero)? Subbed !

[Mophead]

Working on a test automation project at the moment, spent the last few days learning ACI and it just feels sluggish.

My desired workflow is to spin up x number of containers via a script, which will exit and be removed at the end of their life cycle - unfortunately Azure can't take care of this last bit, which is the first annoying thing. I think there's a way to have an Azure function watching for terminated ACI containers, but it's just mental that you can't do this on ACI.

Limits are also a thing, you have a max of 100 container instances per resource group, then 60 containers per container instance. I currently have 66 Containers that I want to run, so I have to figure out a way to split them up, or just spin up a container instance per container, which limits me at 100.

Deployment time! Man, this is a pain. I'm sequentially deploying containers at the moment with the az CLI, and it's so freaking slow. About 1-2 minutes per instance spin up.

I honestly thought I'd get a good CaaS experience with Azure, but its just bollocks.

My org has me locked in with either Azure or AWS, even if ECS is more complex initially, hopefully it'll fit my needs.

[adrianblazquez]

Hi Viktor! I have another doubt, which is your opinion regarding the Alibaba Cloud Elastic Container Service? From your point of view, is it production ready as Google Cloud Run? Do you have any video on that or are you planning one? I just discover this service, and I'm wondering if in terms of price and production readiness is it worth it to migrate from Cloud Run to this service. Even, I've found a database service with a pay-as-you-go mechanism. Have you used it? I haven't found bad comments about these services in the web so if anyone can provide me their opinion, I'd appreciate it :)

[bobuputheeckal]

Azure has Webapps and you can use a docker image to run it

[adrianblazquez]

Thanks Victor :) I have a doubt. If someone has to deploy an entire service (processing + database, for example, I'm prototyping for my master thesis an odoo deployment), how does the comparison changes if it is needed to use a db too? I mean, cloud run seems the best option but gcp does not have a serverless db. But as far as I've understood you and the other comments, fargate is so complex to deploy that is not worth it to choose the fargate + aurora db serverless path to save money (also, because of the fargate need for lb, this option in total is much expensive than a dedicate cloud sql instance). Isn't it?