Item: AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I used this as a backend hosting solution for my portfolio. I was looking to dive deeper into AWS solutions and this was a fairly easy way to do so with little upfront knowledge. I was looking at alternatives to hosting my site on another service's linux hosting solution and opted to give this try.

Pros and Cons

Scales well
Easy to spin up
CLI tools are great

Documentation was either lacking or too complicated for a beginner
The act of removing an instance took me several days to be sure it was actually removed and I wouldn't get billed for it
Billing information and estimates are hard to follow

Return on Investment

I was able to successfully host a SPA web app
It took me much longer to host a SPA using node than I originally thought
Overall it was a great learning experience and I would consider it again

Alternatives Considered

Heroku

AWS is much more focused on scalability, but Heroku was much easier to get things up and running as a beginner. For simple hosting, I would stick to something like Heroku or Netlify. That said, Elastic Beanstalk is meant for more performant functions requiring large scaling and I would definitely consider it for this type of task.

Other Software Used

Heroku

Likelihood to Recommend

The CLI made getting started incredibly easy. Tutorials made it fairly simple to get up and running without too much fuss. That said, it can be a very complicated solution if all you need is a basic hosting platform. However, it can scale out rapidly and does this amazingly well.

Users and Roles

1 - I was the only user of this service, primarily as a learning experience to see if it was a plausible affordable solution for hosting a simple portfolio site.

Support Headcount Required

JavaScript full stack was required to make sure the app itself would run, but the general knowledge of Linux and CLI commands were necessary.

Business Processes Supported

Quick deployment of web apps
Less worry about downtime of web apps
More insight into usage analytics of web app

Innovative Uses

Successfully got a SPA web app deployed in a relatively short amount of time. Expected more frustration than there was

Future Planned Uses

May look into this as a solution for high traffic web apps

Likelihood to Renew

1

My particular use case did not justify the upkeep of Elastic Beanstalk

Products Replaced

No

Key Differentiators

Price
Product Usability
Product Reputation

Price wasn’t lower than a previous hosting solution

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I’d like a more established build pipeline to be able to support the ongoing builds and deployments to the instances

Implementation Rating

7

Spend some time investigating how to make the most use of Beanstalk before diving too deep. Take it in small chunks and learn as much as possible!

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

No - Just one initial phase to get a working solution in place for feasibility testing.

Change Management Lessons

Change management was minimal - Sole developer, not applicable

Implementation Issues

Statically hosting and referencing assets on another AWS service from the build step took some playing with
Environmental variables were difficult to get working correctly

Support Rating

9

Great self help documentation covers most issues

AWS Elastic Beanstalk Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

Pros	Cons
Easy to use	Unnecessarily complex Slow to learn Lots to learn

Easy Tasks

The CLI makes it easy to get started
The configure file is pretty straightforward

Difficult Tasks

Billing estimation seems hard to determine
Tutorials were a must to get started and feel somewhat confident

AWS Elastic Beanstalk - Scales as advertised

Overall Satisfaction with AWS Elastic Beanstalk