AWS Config
Configuration management tools
DevOps software
CI/CD tools
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
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Pay-as-you-go
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What is AWS Config
AWS Config is an AWS service for continuously recording, evaluating, and auditing the configuration of AWS resources. It helps cloud operations, security, and compliance teams track configuration changes, assess resources against rules, and investigate drift over time. The service integrates with AWS-native logging and policy services and supports managed rules as well as custom rules using AWS Lambda. It is primarily used in AWS-centric environments for governance, compliance reporting, and change troubleshooting rather than application delivery pipelines.
Continuous configuration change tracking
AWS Config records configuration changes for many AWS resource types and maintains a configuration history. It supports point-in-time views and change timelines that help teams investigate when and how a resource changed. This is useful for audit evidence, incident response, and operational troubleshooting in AWS accounts.
Policy evaluation with rules
The service evaluates resources against AWS managed rules and custom rules implemented with AWS Lambda. Teams can define compliance conditions (for example, encryption settings or public exposure) and get compliance status per resource and per rule. This provides a structured way to detect configuration drift and non-compliant states without building a separate rules engine.
Deep AWS service integration
AWS Config integrates with AWS Organizations for multi-account governance and can deliver configuration snapshots and compliance results to Amazon S3. It also works with AWS CloudTrail and other AWS security and monitoring services for broader audit and investigation workflows. For organizations standardizing on AWS, this reduces the need to stitch together third-party data collectors for core AWS configuration telemetry.
Not a CI/CD tool
AWS Config does not orchestrate builds, tests, deployments, or release approvals. It is typically used alongside pipeline and deployment tooling rather than replacing it. Teams expecting end-to-end DevOps automation will need additional services or products for CI/CD execution.
AWS-centric scope
AWS Config focuses on AWS resource configurations and does not natively manage configurations across non-AWS infrastructure in the same way. Hybrid and multi-cloud environments often require additional tooling to achieve consistent configuration governance outside AWS. This can lead to fragmented compliance reporting across platforms.
Cost and rule tuning overhead
Pricing depends on configuration items recorded and rule evaluations, which can increase with high-change environments and broad resource coverage. Custom rules require Lambda development, testing, and ongoing maintenance. Teams may need to tune recording scope and rule frequency to balance coverage, noise, and spend.
Plan & Pricing
Pricing model: Pay-as-you-go Rates (from AWS official pricing page):
- Configuration items (recorded): $0.003 per continuous configuration item; $0.012 per periodic configuration item.
- AWS Config rule evaluations (individual rules): $0.001 per evaluation (examples reference "first 100,000 evaluations at $0.001 each").
- Conformance pack evaluations: $0.001 per conformance pack evaluation (examples reference "first 100,000 conformance pack evaluations at $0.001 each"). Additional costs / notes: Standard Amazon S3, SNS, and Lambda charges apply for configuration snapshots/history files, notifications, and custom rules respectively. AWS states: "Pay for only what you use, with no minimums or upfront commitments." Pricing examples and mode-specific behavior (detective vs. proactive modes) are shown on the official pricing page (e.g., proactive-mode-only evaluations may be charged differently depending on modes enabled).
Seller details
Amazon Web Services, Inc.
Seattle, Washington, USA
2006
Subsidiary
https://aws.amazon.com/
https://x.com/awscloud
https://www.linkedin.com/company/amazon-web-services/
