I want to know the best case scenerio, when to use EC2 image builder vs when to just manually create your EC2 instance using Launch Template.
EC2 image builder lets you build, test and distribute images. You can later use those images in the launch template to create a blueprint for creating EC2 instances.
When to use launch template
-
Simple or ad-hoc workloads: You just need to spin up an instance with some bootstrap scripts (
user-data) and don’t expect to rebuild it often. - Experimentation or dev/test environments: Teams testing things quickly don’t need a complex pipeline.
- Highly dynamic workloads: Where instances are short-lived and heavily rely on user-data scripts (e.g., Auto Scaling groups that download and install the latest app build at launch).
- Small teams with limited operational overhead: Launch templates are minimal and fast to set up.
When to use EC2 Image Builder
- Compliance and security-sensitive environments: You need to ensure every EC2 instance is built from a trusted, patched, and auditable AMI.
- Large-scale fleets: If you’re running many instances (e.g., Auto Scaling groups, Spot Fleets, ECS on EC2), you don’t want each instance re-downloading updates on boot. Prebaked images = faster boot times.
- Continuous updates: You need images rebuilt automatically on a schedule (e.g., every week after Patch Tuesday).
- Consistency across accounts/regions: Distribute the same golden AMI globally with no drift.
- Immutable infrastructure mindset: You replace instances with new pre-baked ones instead of patching in place.