ECS-Optimized Amazon Linux 2023 AMI (ecs) | Support by SupportedImages

My primary use case for Amazon Linux  is hosting production-grade applications and microservices running on EC2 , EKS, and container-based architectures such as Docker  and Kubernetes . Amazon Linux  provides continuous security and maintenance updates, including rapid vulnerability patches, which helps keep workloads secure with minimal manual effort. Its security hardening features and minimal footprint reduce the attack surface, offering better protection against common threats.

In my previous organization, almost all our servers ran on Amazon Linux, and I worked with it extensively for about five years. In my current role, we continue to use Amazon Linux primarily for cloud migration projects and for running microservices that require a lightweight, AWS-optimized Linux environment.

In my current role at Quantum Integrators, I am involved in migrating SAP workloads and other applications from a private cloud to AWS , and Amazon Linux has been a core part of this process due to its consistent performance, seamless integration with AWS  services, and minimal configuration effort during migration.

Amazon Linux has positively impacted our organization by improving security, reducing operational overhead, and providing a stable, AWS-optimized platform for running production workloads. Its continuous security and maintenance updates, along with features like automated patching and a minimal footprint, help us keep our systems protected without requiring heavy manual effort. This has significantly reduced downtime and strengthened our overall security posture.

Because Amazon Linux is designed specifically for EC2 , we’ve seen noticeable performance improvements—faster boot times, better networking throughput, and strong compatibility with AWS services like CloudWatch, SSM, and ECR. This has made application deployments smoother and more reliable.

For teams running microservices and containerized applications, Amazon Linux has provided a lightweight, consistent, and high-performance environment for EKS, ECS, Docker , and Kubernetes  workloads. Its predictable update cycle and long-term support have also helped reduce version drift and operational complexity across multiple environments.

Overall, Amazon Linux has simplified server management, improved security compliance, lowered maintenance effort, and delivered reliable performance for cloud-native and production workloads.

One of the best features of Amazon Linux is that it is built and optimized specifically for AWS. Since it is an AWS-native operating system, it receives continuous security and maintenance updates directly from Amazon, including rapid vulnerability patches. In Amazon Linux 2023, kernel live patching is also available, which allows critical security updates to be applied without rebooting — a major advantage for production and low-latency applications.

Because Amazon Linux is tuned for EC2 and AWS hardware, we see better performance in terms of networking throughput, boot speed, and I/O, thanks to optimizations for Nitro, ENA networking, and NVMe-backed storage. It is lightweight, secure by default, and has a minimal attack surface, which reduces overall risk and operational overhead.

Another strong feature is its long-term support model. Amazon Linux provides a stable and predictable release cycle, with Amazon Linux 2 offering long-term support and Amazon Linux 2023 offering a 5-year lifecycle per release. This stability is valuable in production environments where consistency and predictable updates matter.

The OS also comes with essential AWS tools preinstalled — such as the AWS CLI, SSM Agent, EC2 Instance Connect, CloudInit, and ENA drivers — which eliminates additional setup and ensures seamless integration with AWS services. It fully supports container and microservices workloads, including Docker, Kubernetes tooling, ECS, and EKS, making it suitable for cloud-native applications.

Although Amazon Linux is primarily CLI-based (as it’s designed as a lightweight server OS), it is extremely efficient for automation-driven environments. The kernel and system parameters can be further optimized for high-performance compute workloads, databases, and web applications by tuning networking settings, file limits, enhanced networking, and memory configurations.

Overall, Amazon Linux delivers a secure, high-performance, and cost-effective environment for AWS workloads. Its native integration, automatic patching, predictable lifecycle, and optimized kernel are the main reasons we prefer it for production servers and large-scale cloud deployments.

AWS provides meaningful cost savings for Amazon Linux workloads through long-term commitment options like Savings Plans and Reserved Instances. Compute Savings Plans offer the most flexibility across EC2, Fargate, and Lambda, while EC2 Instance Savings Plans deliver the best pricing for specific instance families. Standard and Convertible Reserved Instances also help reduce costs based on 1–3 year commitments. These options have helped us optimize our overall compute expenses effectively when running Amazon Linux on EC2.

One improvement for Amazon Linux would be stronger support for running it outside AWS. Although Amazon provides local VM images for VirtualBox and VMware, they are intended mainly for development and testing. Unlike Ubuntu , Debian , or Red Hat, Amazon Linux is not designed or fully supported as a production OS in on-prem or hybrid environments. Expanding official support outside AWS would offer more flexibility for teams that maintain mixed infrastructure.

Another area for improvement is the community ecosystem. Compared to Ubuntu  or Red Hat, Amazon Linux has a smaller community and fewer third-party resources or tutorials. A larger ecosystem would make troubleshooting and adoption easier.

Finally, improving backward compatibility between Amazon Linux 2 and Amazon Linux 2023—especially around package management (DNF vs yum) and updated toolchains—would simplify upgrades for teams managing large fleets.

I have been using Amazon Linux for approximately 6.5 plus years.

Yes, Amazon Linux is stable. In my experience, the operating system itself has been reliable and consistent across production environments. Even during situations where an AWS Availability Zone faced issues—such as the recent DNS-related outage in one of the US-East-2 Availability Zones—Amazon Linux continued to function normally. The temporary impact was related to the AWS infrastructure, not the OS.

Because my applications run in a high-availability (HA) architecture across multiple Availability Zones, traffic automatically failed over to the healthy zone without downtime. Amazon Linux handled the transition smoothly, which reinforced my confidence in its stability for production workloads. Overall, it has remained secure, stable, and dependable in day-to-day operations.

Amazon Linux is highly scalable because it runs on AWS infrastructure, which allows instances to scale up or down quickly based on workload demand. The OS itself is lightweight and optimized for EC2, so it starts faster and performs consistently during scaling events. When paired with AWS Auto Scaling  groups or container platforms like EKS and ECS, Amazon Linux can be launched in large numbers within minutes to handle traffic spikes.

A major benefit is the elasticity provided by AWS—resources can be increased when needed and released when demand decreases, which helps control cost. This avoids the limitations of traditional on-premise systems where scaling requires purchasing new hardware. In daily operations, Amazon Linux has been reliable and efficient for applications that require quick scaling and consistent performance across large fleets of EC2 instances.

I would rate AWS customer service 10 out of 10. I have used the AWS Support Center multiple times, and in most cases a support engineer has responded within a few minutes. This has been consistent not only for Amazon Linux–related issues but also for other AWS services such as EC2, S3 , and databases.

AWS support has been available 24/7 in my experience, and the engineers are knowledgeable, quick to troubleshoot, and clear in their guidance. They provide step-by-step solutions, help identify the root cause, and ensure the issue is resolved efficiently. Overall, AWS customer service has been reliable, responsive, and extremely helpful whenever we needed assistance.

Positive

Yes, I’ve seen ROI with Amazon Linux. It integrates smoothly with other AWS services and tools we use, including Jenkins  pipelines, which reduces setup time and simplifies CI/CD operations. Since Amazon Linux is free and doesn’t require any additional licensing, it provides immediate cost savings compared to paid Linux distributions.

The long-term support (LTS) model, consistent security patching, and predictable release cycles also reduce the operational effort required to maintain servers. These factors help lower maintenance costs and improve stability, which contributes to overall ROI in our production environment.

Before choosing Amazon Linux, we also worked with other Linux distributions like Ubuntu and Red Hat. While these flavors are reliable and widely used, our workloads were already heavily dependent on AWS services such as EC2, S3 , CloudWatch, IAM , and VPC. Because of this, Amazon Linux became the natural fit for us. It integrates seamlessly with the AWS ecosystem and provides an optimized experience for EC2-based applications.

Compared to other Linux distributions, the main differences we noticed were in the level of integration and performance tuning. Amazon Linux comes with AWS-tuned kernel parameters, ENA networking optimizations, and built-in tools like the AWS CLI, SSM Agent, and CloudInit. This allowed our workloads to run more efficiently with lower CPU overhead and faster boot times.

Ubuntu and Red Hat offer larger communities, more package availability, and broader on-premise support, which are advantages in hybrid environments. However, Amazon Linux is lightweight, stable, secure by default, and specifically optimized for AWS hardware. Since our entire infrastructure relies on AWS services, choosing Amazon Linux simplified management, improved performance, and aligned better with our cloud-native architecture.

I would rate Amazon Linux a 9 out of 10. In my experience using it for production workloads over the past several years, Amazon Linux has been stable, lightweight, and well-optimized for AWS environments. The built-in integration with AWS services and continuous security updates makes it easy to manage, especially when working across EC2, EKS, and containerized applications. Overall, it has been reliable and efficient for the type of workloads I handle on a daily basis.

With AWS , I work with products involving networking, migration, and other services. Currently, I work in an industry where I use Amazon Linux  for various use cases.

I find Amazon Linux  valuable for its direct functionality. The best features include the core capabilities that make it suitable for our operations.

Amazon Linux could be improved by including additional features and continuous improvements in various areas.

I have several years of experience with Amazon Linux.

With the optimized kernel, there are certain benefits and limitations to consider. The support quality has been a factor in my experience with the service.

Regarding the optimized kernel, I can explain that it offers specific advantages and constraints depending on the use case.

Positive

I have experience with Palo Alto and have mentioned it previously. I also have experience with AWS  services and can discuss how they have been helpful. I have some familiarity with AWS CodeStar  and other AWS tools. I do have experience with Amazon Linux and AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery . We are customers of AWS rather than partners. We use AWS services to solve our customer problems. To my knowledge, we are not partners who make products out of AWS services or sell through AWS, though I am still new to this role and may not know all the details. My review rating for Amazon Linux is between one to ten.

My use case for Amazon Linux  is mostly for running containers.

I am using SELinux for enhanced security in Amazon Linux , and it is helpful for me.

I find that the functions or features of Amazon Linux that are most valuable are ones that I haven't specifically mentioned.

The main benefits I receive from Amazon Linux are saving time and streamlining some work processes.

I use Python, as Amazon Linux includes some pre-installed libraries and tools such as Python, Ruby, and Node.js.

In my opinion, for improvement, Amazon Linux could make better integration with third-party vendors, perhaps enhance user experience or lower the price compared to other Linux solutions.

For the future, it would be great to see Amazon Linux have more wide functionality to work with other systems.

I have been working with Amazon Linux for eight years.

I rate the stability of Amazon Linux as a nine.

I understand the scalability aspects and I think they are adequate.

I would rate the technical support from Amazon Linux as good enough.

I believe the response time and quality of support could be better, so I see quality as a single point of feedback.

Positive

I work with both Amazon Linux and Ubuntu  because Ubuntu  provides more wide functionalities than Amazon Linux.

The initial setup for Amazon Linux is straightforward, and I understand it well.

Regarding the pricing model of Amazon Linux, I think it could be more flexible or a bit cheaper for users, as I find Ubuntu is cheaper than Amazon Linux.

I am not using IPv6 and I'm okay with that.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Amazon Linux an eight.

The main use case for Amazon Linux  is hosting websites.

This is for overall company operations.

The best features with Amazon Linux  include the integration with AWS  and other services.

It is an operating system that AWS  manages, and I feel I can trust it regarding the updates without interfering with or interrupting services.

The performance of Amazon Linux with AWS services is perfectly fine. I use it and change the instance type to give it more resources at times, and for the sandbox, I give it less, and it satisfies what we want.

Amazon Linux reduces the time it would take for setup or deployment because I rely on the documentation for AWS since it's streamlined, and the commands I need to run are easily accessible whenever I need to look up anything.

We've used the application load balancers with Amazon Linux, and that's the main one I can think of regarding advanced networking capabilities.

That feature has definitely helped us enhance the scalability and reliability of our cloud applications by easing administration, as the application load balancer is managed by AWS and ties in with Amazon Certificate Manager, ensuring I do not have to concern myself with scalability and any updates.

The main positive impact of Amazon Linux on my company has been no interruptions of services.

The public website is up and running, which allows us to monetize with virtually no staff hours for downtime or service interruptions.

I cannot say honestly how these features have contributed to my system security and package management processes.

I try to keep the services and what I use on Amazon Linux very limited to support overall configurations.

I would love it if Amazon could provide fleet management of their operating system for updates and configuration, as that's an area I would need more attention to.

I have dealt with the Amazon Linux product for 10 years.

I would rate customer service or technical support from Amazon a 10.

Positive

I switched to Amazon Linux primarily because I was running my operating systems within AWS, knowing that Amazon would support it and all the documentation was up-to-date.

We were using CentOS  before switching to Amazon Linux.

Mainly, we used CentOS , which was managed by Red Hat or IBM. Once they changed their upgrade path, it became unviable, so we went with Amazon Linux, which made the most sense in AWS.

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Amazon Linux is straightforward and simple.

I have seen a return on investment with Amazon Linux.

I have experience with RDS  with AWS.

I have experience with Amazon Linux and other Amazon products.

I have mentioned relevant data points about ease of use and the trust that Amazon provides, as I don't have to concern myself with other Linux distributions.

I realized those benefits during the actual deployment.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Amazon Linux a 10.