https://fortem.dev/blog Guides, comparisons, and use cases for platform engineers running AWS ECS Fargate at scale. en-us Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:36:10 GMT Thu, 25 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT fortem-dev feed https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-fargate-autoscaling/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-fargate-autoscaling/ Thu, 25 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Target tracking, step scaling, the cooldowns that actually matter, and the five reasons ECS Fargate autoscaling doesn't scale when you expect — straight from the AWS docs. https://fortem.dev/blog/fargate-vs-lambda/ https://fortem.dev/blog/fargate-vs-lambda/ Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Versus The cost line between Lambda and Fargate is set by execution duration, not traffic. Breakeven math, the hidden costs that move it, and what the June 2026 MicroVMs launch actually changes. https://fortem.dev/blog/argocd-alternative/ https://fortem.dev/blog/argocd-alternative/ Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide An honest comparison of ArgoCD alternatives: Flux, Fleet, Harness, Spinnaker, plain CI — and the option comparison posts skip: not needing GitOps at all. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-orphaned-environments/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-orphaned-environments/ Tue, 23 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Use Case A stopped ECS service costs $0 in compute — but the ALB ($16/mo) and NAT Gateway ($32/mo) keep billing. Here's how to audit your fleet and delete environments that are costing you money with zero tasks running. https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-staging-environment-cost/ https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-staging-environment-cost/ Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Non-prod ECS environments run 168 hours a week. Your team works 40. Here's where the money actually goes on Fargate — idle compute, CloudWatch Logs, shared infra math — and how to cut it. https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-cost-anomaly-detection-ecs/ https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-cost-anomaly-detection-ecs/ Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide The default CAD setup monitors all ECS spend as one number. Here's how to wire it to your environment tags, the Terraform to drop in, and where the 24h delay creates real blind spots. https://fortem.dev/blog/fortem-vs-humanitec/ https://fortem.dev/blog/fortem-vs-humanitec/ Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Versus Humanitec's Container Driver explicitly excludes ECS. If your problem is operating an ECS Fargate fleet, you're comparing the wrong category of tool. Pricing, features, and fit explained. https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-cost-optimization-ecs/ https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-cost-optimization-ecs/ Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Spot and Savings Plans cover the first 30%. Five more levers most ECS teams miss: Graviton (flat 20% off), VPC endpoints, Container Insights scoping, shared ALBs, and free Compute Optimizer. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-service-connect-guide/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-service-connect-guide/ Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide ECS Service Connect adds an Envoy proxy to every Fargate task automatically. Free feature, real cost: +0.25 vCPU + 64 MiB per task. When it beats Cloud Map, when it doesn't, and the July 2025 blue/green fix. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-audit-log-compliance/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-audit-log-compliance/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Use Case Every ECS change — UpdateService, StopTask, RunTask — lands in CloudTrail with who, when, and from where. Three CLI commands find the culprit in under 2 minutes. https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-ecs-logging-guide/ https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-ecs-logging-guide/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide awslogs, FireLens, and the three decisions every ECS Fargate team gets wrong: blocking mode, Never Expire retention ($0.03/GB/month), and log group naming at fleet scale. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-service-discovery-guide/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-service-discovery-guide/ Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide A decision framework for ECS Fargate teams — with the July 2025 blue/green unblock, real cost math ($0.31/task/mo sidecar vs $0.10/resource Cloud Map), and Terraform snippet. https://fortem.dev/blog/platform-engineering-ecs/ https://fortem.dev/blog/platform-engineering-ecs/ Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Platform engineering for ECS isn't Backstage or golden paths. It's closing the operations gap that opens at 10+ environments: scheduling, self-service, fleet visibility. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-blue-green-deployment-guide/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-blue-green-deployment-guide/ Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Rolling update works for most ECS services. Here are the 3 cases it breaks — schema migrations, WebSocket connections, canary testing — and how ECS Native Blue/Green (July 2025) fixes each. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-task-definition-guide/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-task-definition-guide/ Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide The 8 mistakes that break ECS deployments: wrong IAM role, invalid Fargate CPU/memory combos, health check restart loops, secrets that don't rotate after rotation. https://fortem.dev/blog/cloudwatch-costs-ecs/ https://fortem.dev/blog/cloudwatch-costs-ecs/ Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Use Case ECS sends all logs to CloudWatch with retention set to Never Expire by default. 4 steps to cut your CloudWatch bill by 60-80% with real CLI commands and Terraform. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-exec-guide/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-exec-guide/ Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Use Case No more SSH into EC2. ECS Exec gives you a shell into Fargate containers. The 5 IAM errors that catch everyone, copy-paste policy, and production audit setup. https://fortem.dev/blog/internal-developer-platform-ecs/ https://fortem.dev/blog/internal-developer-platform-ecs/ Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide 93% of top-performing teams use an IDP. But ECS teams don't need a full platform — they need an operational layer. A decision framework to figure out what you actually need. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-environment-clone/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-environment-clone/ Sun, 07 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Use Case The compliance auditor wants a clone of production. That's 15 services, an ALB, RDS, SSM params — a 12-step manual process. Here's the template approach, and a parameterized Terraform module. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-fargate-cost-visibility/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-fargate-cost-visibility/ Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Use Case Cost Explorer shows the total. It doesn't show per-environment costs. Here's why ECS Fargate environments are structurally hard to attribute — and a 10-line bash script that does it anyway. https://fortem.dev/blog/fortem-vs-cortex/ https://fortem.dev/blog/fortem-vs-cortex/ Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Versus Cortex is an Engineering Operations Platform for org-wide visibility. Fortem operates your ECS Fargate fleet specifically. Here's which one you need — and when to use both. https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-dev-environment-cost/ https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-dev-environment-cost/ Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Cost Explorer shows the total. It doesn't show per-environment costs. Here's the real math: compute + fixed overhead (ALB, NAT, CloudWatch ≈ $90/env) — and how to see it. https://fortem.dev/blog/devops-automation-beyond-cicd/ https://fortem.dev/blog/devops-automation-beyond-cicd/ Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide CI/CD automates deployment — not operations. 5 gaps every team discovers at 10+ environments: scheduling, self-service, cost tracking, cloning, orphans. Build vs buy breakdown. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-fargate-best-practices/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-fargate-best-practices/ Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Seven Fargate best practices for teams at scale: naming conventions, fixed overhead, CloudWatch retention, Fargate Spot, quota isolation, Terraform state, and scheduling. Real numbers from AWS pricing. https://fortem.dev/blog/reduce-aws-costs-without-ri/ https://fortem.dev/blog/reduce-aws-costs-without-ri/ Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide RIs and Savings Plans change how you pay, not what runs. Here are 5 methods that cut actual consumption — scheduling, right-sizing, Spot, auto-stop, and killing orphans — ranked by impact. https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-fargate-pricing-real-costs/ https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-fargate-pricing-real-costs/ Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide AWS says $0.04048/vCPU-hr. Here's what a real environment costs — ALB, NAT Gateway, CloudWatch, data transfer — and the fixed overhead nobody budgets for. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-fargate-terraform/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-fargate-terraform/ Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Terraform is the right tool for provisioning ECS Fargate infrastructure. But at 10+ environments, state sprawl and the ops gap catch every team. Three patterns, a tagging strategy, and what the operations layer needs to do. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-multi-environment-strategy/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-multi-environment-strategy/ Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Naming conventions, cluster structure, and the five AWS limits that surface when environments scale from 3 to 10+. Fixed overhead, IAM proliferation, Fargate quota exhaustion — and what to get right before you hit the wall. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-environment-scheduling/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-environment-scheduling/ Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Stop paying for ECS dev and staging environments when nobody's using them. Every scheduling approach — AWS-native options, trade-offs, and what actually works at fleet scale. https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-proton-deprecated/ https://fortem.dev/blog/aws-proton-deprecated/ Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Timely AWS Proton shuts down October 7, 2026. Your ECS environments keep running — but the console, APIs, and every pipeline built on Proton stop working. Here's what breaks and how to migrate. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-staging-self-service/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-staging-self-service/ Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Use Case Platform engineers become the single point of failure for staging ops when developers have no safe, scoped way to act. Here's how to fix it with ECS environment RBAC. https://fortem.dev/blog/fortem-vs-aws-copilot/ https://fortem.dev/blog/fortem-vs-aws-copilot/ Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Versus AWS Copilot CLI reaches end-of-support June 12, 2026. Your ECS services keep running — but here's what breaks, what to do next, and how to migrate. https://fortem.dev/blog/fortem-vs-flightcontrol/ https://fortem.dev/blog/fortem-vs-flightcontrol/ Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Versus Flightcontrol is the right tool for 1–3 apps on AWS. Here's exactly where it stops making sense — and where the pricing math breaks at fleet scale. https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-fargate-cost-optimization/ https://fortem.dev/blog/ecs-fargate-cost-optimization/ Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT Guide Dev/staging environments run 168 hrs/week. Your team works 40. Here's the math on what that costs — and four methods to fix it, starting with the one most teams ignore.