AWS Lambda vs Portainer: Pricing Comparison 2026
Side-by-side pricing comparison of AWS Lambda and Portainer. See all plans, features, and costs at a glance.
Bottom line: AWS Lambda starts at $2.1e-9/mo, making it $10/mo cheaper than Portainer ($10/mo). Portainer offers a free plan.
Last updated: July 6, 2026
AWS Lambda vs Portainer: Quick Pricing Facts
| Feature | AWS Lambda | Portainer |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $2.1e-9/mo | $10/mo |
| Number of Plans | 50 | 4 |
| Free Tier | No | Yes |
| Pricing Model | usage-based | freemium |
| Annual Discount | N/A | N/A |
AWS Lambda is the more affordable option, starting at $2.1e-9/mo compared to Portainer's $10/mo. Both are Hosting & Infra tools with 54 combined pricing plans and 11 features compared.
Portainer stands out with a free plan for getting started. AWS Lambda uses usage-based pricing while Portainer uses freemium pricing, which may affect your total cost at scale.
Review the detailed tier-by-tier comparison above to see exactly which features are included at each price point and find the best fit for your Hosting & Infra needs.
| Pricing Plans |  AWS Lambda Try free |  Portainer Try free |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | x86 Price Custom pricing | |
| Tier 2 | First 6 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | ProPopular $10/month $8 / year Includes
|
| Tier 3 | Next 9 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | Business $25/month $21 / year Includes
|
| Tier 4 | Over 15 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | Enterprise Custom pricing Includes
|
| Tier 5 | Arm Price Custom pricing | - |
| Tier 6 | First 7.5 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 7 | Next 11.25 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 8 | Over 18.75 Billion GB-seconds / month $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 9 | 128 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 10 | 512 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 11 | 1024 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 12 | 1536 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 13 | 2048 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 14 | 3072 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 15 | 4096 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 16 | 5120 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 17 | 6144 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 18 | 7168 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 19 | 8192 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 20 | 9216 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 21 | 10240 $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 22 | Durable Operations Custom pricing | - |
| Tier 23 | Operations such as Steps, Waits, and Callbacks $8/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 24 | Storage Custom pricing | - |
| Tier 25 | Data Written $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 26 | Data Retained $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 27 | Total compute (seconds) $1000000/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 28 | Total compute (GB-s) $32000000/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 29 | Billable compute $32000000/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 30 | Compute cost $31600000/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 31 | Total requests Custom pricing | - |
| Tier 32 | Billable requests $2000000/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 33 | Request cost $1/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 34 | Operations $1/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 35 | Operations cost $4/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 36 | Data written cost $104/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 37 | Storage (running incl. 7 day wait) $104/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 38 | Storage (retained 14 days) $104/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 39 | Data Retained cost $24/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 40 | Total charges $421/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 41 | Tenant isolated enviroments (x86) $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 42 | Tenant isolated enviroments (ARM) $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 43 | Ephemeral Storage $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 44 | Cache $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 45 | Restore $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 46 | Processed Bytes $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 47 | SQS $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 48 | MSK or Self-Managed Kafka $0/monthCheapest | - |
| Tier 49 | Requests Custom pricing | - |
| Tier 50 | Duration $0/monthCheapest | - |
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Which Should You Choose?
Choose AWS Lambda if:
- •You want fully managed serverless compute with no container overhead
- •Your team does not want to manage Docker hosts or Kubernetes clusters
- •You need automatic scaling and zero infrastructure maintenance
Choose Portainer if:
- •You already run Docker or Kubernetes and need a UI to manage containers
- •You want to self-host your infrastructure with a lightweight management layer
- •You need Portainer's free Community Edition to manage local container stacks
Portainer is a container management UI, not a compute platform. It sits on top of Docker or Kubernetes and helps you manage running containers. Lambda replaces containers entirely with managed functions. If you are running containerized workloads and need visibility, Portainer is free and useful. If you want to escape container management altogether, Lambda is the answer.
Frequently Asked Questions: AWS Lambda vs Portainer
Which is cheaper, AWS Lambda or Portainer?
How many pricing plans does AWS Lambda have vs Portainer?
Does AWS Lambda or Portainer offer a free plan?
Can I save money by paying annually for AWS Lambda or Portainer?
What is the most popular Portainer plan?
Does AWS Lambda or Portainer offer custom enterprise pricing?
What pricing models do AWS Lambda and Portainer use?
Sources
- AWS Lambda Official Pricing- Vendor pricing page
- Portainer Official Pricing- Vendor pricing page
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