AWS Amplify Review and Features

Written by Thom Krupa

Last update: 6/7/2024

Feature		AWS Amplify
Infrastructure What runs under-the-hood.		AWS
Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery (CI/CD)
Continuous deployment Imagine an automatic update system for your website. This feature automatically deploys any changes you make to your code (usually from Git) to your live website.
Automated builds from Git An easy integration with popular Git repository hostings like Github, GitLab and Bitbucket.
Instant rollbacks to any version Easy way to promote any previous build to production without the need to revert commits or data changes.		Requires configuration
Site previews for every push New build with a unique URL for every commit and pull request.
Compatible with all Static Site Generators
Notifications Events triggered on successful, canceled, or failed build.		Email, AWS Chatbot chat notifications, or AWS Console Mobile App push notifications
Team Management Create team account and invite your teammates to the project.
Custom domains Bring your own domain and connect to the project.
Automatic HTTPS SSL certificate generated automatically.
Rewrites & Redirects HTTP 301 or 302 redirects from one URL to another. Rewrites work similar to reverse proxy and allow to send user to different URL without modifying the original URL.
Password Protection An easy way to restrict access to the website for users who don't have password. Useful if you work on a new site and want to keep it in secret.
Skew Protection Skew Protection ensures client and server versions stay synchronized during deployments, preventing compatibility issues.
Free Tier
Websites Number of projects you can have in Free Tier on one account.		Unlimited
Build Minutes The amount of time your build scripts can run per month.		1 000 minutes /month for the first 12 months
Concurrent builds How many builds can be run at the same time?		N/A
Bandwidth The amount of data that is transferred to or from the CDN.		15GB /month for the first 12 months
Team Members The number of users (team members) that can be added to the CMS.		Unlimited
Build Time Per Deployment Build have to finish within the limited time. If not it will fail due to timeout.		30 minutes Can be increased by setting a custom `_BUILD_TIMEOUT` env variable.
Build Memory Limit (in MiB) The amount of memory that is allocated by system to build process. Some operations like image processing are expensive and might require more memory. For Node.js it is `max-old-space-size` setting.		2048 MiB Can be increased to 8196 MiB
Paid Plans
Max team members before switch to custom pricing		Unlimited
Git contributors have to be Team Members In order to triger build, Git contributor has to be a paid team member.
Serverless
Serverless Functions (API) Small pieces of code that run on-demand without managing servers, typically used for API endpoints.		Node.js, Java, Go, .NET Core, Python
Edge Functions Serverless functions that run closer to the user, reducing latency and improving performance.		CloudFront
Background Functions Code that runs in the background on the platform to perform tasks that don't require immediate user interaction.
CRON Jobs Schedule tasks to run automatically at specific times or intervals. Useful for automating repetitive website maintenance tasks.		Schedule functions
Developer Experience
CLI Command Line Interface tools that allow developers to perform tasks and manage the tool via the command line.		`amplify`
Extensions Additional plugins or add-ons that can enhance the functionality of the platform.
Environment Variables Secret configuration settings for your website that change based on where it's deployed (dev, staging, production).		N/A
Build Logs Track the progress and results of website builds for troubleshooting
Build Canceling Ability to stop a build process that is currently running. This frees up resources and lets you make changes to your website faster by stopping builds you don't need anymore.
Platform Built-in Products
Analytics Tools for tracking and analyzing website traffic.		Integration with AWS Pinpoint
Authentication Services for managing user logins and authentication.		Integration with Amazon Cognito
Database Managed database services.		Powered by AWS AppSync and Amazon DynamoDB
Asset Optimizations Tools for optimizing images, CSS, JS, etc.
A/B Testing Lets you test different versions of your site by directing traffic to each variant, helping you optimize user experience based on performance metrics.
Form Handling Services for managing form submissions.
Data Storage Solutions for storing and managing data.
Push Notifications This allows your website to send real-time alerts or updates to visitors who have opted-in.
Machine Learning
Security & Compliance Offerings
Two-factor authentication Adds an extra layer of security when logging in.
Team Logs Tracks user activity within the platform for better accountability.		Possible with AWS IAM and CloudTrail
SOC2 Service Organization Control 2 compliance for managing customer data.
ISO27001 International standard for information security management.
GDPR Compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation for handling personal data.
Sustainability
Carbon Neutral
Carbon-free Energy		AWS promised to run on 100% renewable energy by 2025
Integrations
Integrations Connecting your deployment platform with external services like headless content, commerce, databases, and more.
Custom build-system integrations Allows you to connect your own build tools and processes with the deployment platform.		AWS CodePipeline
Support with self-hosted instances of git
API mesh API Mesh allows you to combine multiple APIs into a single unified API, simplifying data fetching and integration across different services and backends.
Deploy Preview feedback integrations Enables team members and stakeholders to comment directly on preview deployments.		N/A
Edge Functions integrations
High Performance Build Memory and CPU		N/A
Native Build Plugins

S3 as static hosting

Amazon Web Services (AWS) launched S3 in 2006, a cheap, scalable, high availability, and low latency object storage. It provides an option to host a static website but doesn't offer a build pipeline.

Amplify

Amplify is a fully managed static hosting solution for modern Jamstack projects. It handles CI/CD and CDN.

There is no need to deal with IAM (which is a service to manage access to other AWS services). No need to configure CloudFront, S3, and CodePipeline. All you need is to connect the git repository and set the build command.

AWS Amplify Console

AWS Amplify Console looks like an Amazon version of Firebase, but instead of GCP, it uses the power of Amazon cloud. Cognito for authentication, AWS AppSync, and Amazon DynamoDB to power real-time database called DataStore.

Dashboard

Let me sum AWS UI and UX in one screenshot:

This is one of the first steps when you're trying to deploy an example Gatsby app. Why dark or light mode if you can have both at once? But joking aside, AWS UI is bad. It has many glitches, it's not very intuitive, and it's hard to manage. Don't get me wrong. AWS is a powerful cloud platform, it has dozens of different products, but it misses a good UX team.

Conclusion

AWS is famous for its complexity. Amplify tries to simplify the most common tasks and use cases. It is a step in the right direction. Amplify focuses on user experience and gives frontend developers one of the easiest ways to use and connect various AWS products.