
At a high level, there are 3 types of EC2 instances
- On Demand Instances (most common)
- Reserved Instances
- Spot Instances (this article)
Here are the main differences between a spot instance and on-demand instances.
On-Demand | Spot |
Always available | Only available when capacity is available |
More expensive than Spot | Significantly less expensive than on-demand |
Since Spot Instances are only available when there is capacity available, which is something determined by AWS, these of course wouldn't be used for something that must always be available, such as an EC2 instance running a customer facing web application. However, a good use case for a spot instance is some type of infrequent batch processing job, perhaps some some that just needs to run once a week, at any time.
To get started, in the left panel of the EC2 console, select Spot Requests > Request Spot Instances and then complete the form to specify the number of EC2 spot instances you would like to request.
Did you find this article helpful?
If so, consider buying me a coffee over at