AWS CodePipeline vs. Pantheon

I think AWS CodePipeline is a great tool for anyone wanted automated deployments in a multi-server/container AWS environment. AWS also offers services like Elastic Beanstalk that provide a more managed hosting & deployment experience. CodePipeline is a good middle ground with solid, built-in automation with enough customizability to not lock people into one deployment or architecture philosophy.

Incentivized

Pantheon is excellent for medium-large websites that require high availability and a managed workflow. It would be inappropriate for small websites because of the cost or for situations where more control of the environment is appropriate. We find it useful because we rarely do anything outside of the Drupal application.

Incentivized

• It is reliable and works without errors
• It integrates well with our repository and all other AWS functions as well as our end database

Incentivized

• Effective use of our codebase deployment and implementation.
• The dashboard functionality and general stability and security are excellent.
• The server is quite consistent, and if you need assistance from the support team, they are very quick to respond.
• Automatic updates let me ensure that my customers have safe websites without increasing my own expense.
• The team offers excellent assistance and help for chat.

Incentivized

• Ease of use - things like CircleCI or other tools are a bit easier to learn.
• Ability to build from more sources.

Incentivized

• Pricing structure has too large of a jump between Basic and Performance plans
• Have run into issues with prescribed WP updates not working through dashboard and having to do manually.
• Pantheon site dashboard occasionally is unavailable (the site is never affected though)

Incentivized

The environment is stable and we have not had any issues/downtime. The annual cost is reasonable.

Incentivized

Overall, I give AWS Codepipeline a 9 because it gets the job done and I can't complain much about the web interface as much of the action is taking place behind the scenes on the terminal locally or via Amazon's infrastructure anyway. It would be nicer to have a better flowing and visualizable web interface, however.

Incentivized

Pantheon is an easy system, especially to the users with previous experience with other similar platform and the interface is clear enough to easily understand how things operates. On the Cloud deployment everything also works effectively and the technical team from Pantheon community are very helpful on providing the necessary assistant to their customers.

Incentivized

Our pipeline takes about 30 minutes to run through. Although this time depends on the applications you are using on either end, I feel that it is a reasonable time to make upgrades and updates to our system as it is not an every day push.

Incentivized

We didn't need a lot of support with AWS CodePipeline as it was pretty straightforward to configure and use, but where we ran into problems, the AWS community was able to help. AWS support agents were also helpful in resolving some of the minor issues we encountered, which we could not find a solution elsewhere.

Incentivized

Even tier 1 Pantheon chat and ticket support are knowledgeable, competent, and useful. They routinely understand and promptly resolve urgent, complex, and/or unusual issues that other hosts need to escalate to tier 2 or tier 3 support personnel. I honestly can't think of a truly negative or disappointing support experience in the years I've used Pantheon hosting for client websites.

Incentivized

Once the environments were up and running, the implementation was easy to synchronize with latest data prior to switchover.

Incentivized

CodeCommit and CodeDeploy can be used with CodePipeline so it’s not really fair to stack them against each other as they can be quite the compliment. The same goes for Beanstalk, which is often used as a deployment target in relation to CodePipeline.

CodePipeline fulfills the CI/CD duty, where the other services do not focus on that specific function. They are supplements, not replacements. CodePipeline will detect the updated code and handle deploying it to the actual instance via Beanstalk.

Jenkins is open source and not a native AWS service, that is its primary differentiator. Jenkins can also be used as a supplement to CodePipeline.

Incentivized

Although it may seem a good fit for a company that needs extra control over the deployment process and development process, for a firm that is mainly concentrating on SEO, it would be an overkill. Pantheon provides that sweet automation that allows us to shed some weight on development and focus on our business activities.

Incentivized

• CodePipeline has reduced ongoing devops costs for my clients, especially around deployment & testing.
• CodePipeline has sped up development workflow by making the deployment process automated off git pushes. Deployment takes very little coordination as the system will just trigger based on what is the latest commit in a branch.
• CodePipeline offered a lot of out-of-the-box functionality that was much simpler to setup than a dedicated CI server. It allowed the deployment process to built and put into production with much less and effort and cost compared to rolling the functionality manually.

Incentivized

• Pantheon allows ordinary sites to excel esp if there is consistent development going on behind the scenes.
• Website management is super easy and the hosting fee gets paid off as you save on developer hours.
• Expensive for those who are not consistently developing on the platform, there are other options out there at better price points.

Incentivized