After deciding to host a static site, the next practical problem is usually: how do I run an API in a container in the cloud? AWS answers with an alphabet soup — ECS, EKS, Fargate — that's confusing enough on its own, before even comparing it to Azure and Google Cloud.
The most common mistake: these are not three equivalent options
The most frequent confusion is treating ECS, EKS and Fargate as three alternatives at the same level. In practice, they're two separate decisions:
Orchestrator: ECS (AWS-proprietary, simpler) vs. EKS (AWS-managed Kubernetes, the same standard used anywhere else).
Execution mode: Fargate (serverless, no server to manage) vs. EC2 (you manage the instances).
