Item: AWS Elastic Beanstalk
Rating: 8
Author: Michael Jenkins

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The team I support uses AWS Elastic Beanstalk for rapid software development with AWS resources. [It's] an easy on-ramp for getting software into the cloud without worrying too much about the underlying architecture and hardware. AWS Elastic Beanstalk lets them go from a concept to deployed code in a very short time. The tool is easily accessible from the console, AWS CLI, and its own dedicated CLI with the latter two being suitable for use in CI/CD pipelines. The main business problem addressed by AWS Elastic Beanstalk is allowing developers to quickly get their ideas online without worrying too much about deploying or managing the resources in the background.

Pros and Cons

Getting a project set up using the console or CLI is easy compared to other [computing] platforms.
AWS Elastic Beanstalk supports a variety of programming languages so teams can experiment with different frameworks but still use the same compute platform for rapid prototyping.
Common application architectures can be referenced as patterns during project [setup].
Multiple environments can be deployed for an application giving more flexibility for experimentation.

Users may find it confusing if they need to switch from the dedicated CLI for AWS Elastic Beanstalk and the AWS CLI.
It would be useful to support paused or suspended environments for applications that don't need to be online 24x7. Dev and test environments would be benefit from this feature.

Return on Investment

AWS Elastic Beanstalk allows for quick iteration on application code with built in deployment mechanisms.
Configuration can be difficult to manage in complex applications, specifically in applications with multiple environments.

Alternatives Considered

I have used App Engine on Google Cloud Platform and App Service on Microsoft Azure. Both offer similar capabilities to AWS Elastic Beanstalk. App Engine has the nice ability to scale to 0 instances when the application has not been in use for some time. This allows for substantial cost savings for dev, test, and even infrequently used production environments compared to AWS Elastic Beanstalk where environments are expected to run 24x7 regardless of load[,] and stopping or pausing an environment can prove to be difficult. I've only been using App Service for a short period of time as of this writing and can't offer a deep comparison [...] to AWS Elastic Beanstalk. However, I do appreciate AWS Elastic Beanstalk's ease of use in most cases compared to my App Service experience so far.

Key Insights

Do you think AWS Elastic Beanstalk delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with AWS Elastic Beanstalk's feature set?

Yes

Did AWS Elastic Beanstalk live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of AWS Elastic Beanstalk go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy AWS Elastic Beanstalk again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Google App Engine, Azure App Service, Heroku Platform

Likelihood to Recommend

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is well suited for [the] rapid development of applications that use standard compute platforms based on popular programming languages. So getting a Go, Python, Ruby, or Node.js app going in AWS Elastic Beanstalk will be easy. For non-standard applications, containers provide another option for using AWS Elastic Beanstalk. In either case, AWS Elastic Beanstalk is well suited for applications that are [self-contained]. AWS Elastic Beanstalk is also good for development or test environments that need a built-in deployment method.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is less appropriate for complex applications that rely on multiple AWS services. While deploying and running the base code might be easy to get going, it may be difficult to apply permissions and integrations with the other services.

AWS Elastic Beanstalk Gets Code into the Cloud with Minimal Difficulty

Overall Satisfaction with AWS Elastic Beanstalk