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Fargate Spot Containers (70 % cheaper)

AWS architecture template · ECS with FARGATE_SPOT capacity provider — up to 70 % savings over on-demand Fargate. SQS-driven task scaling with graceful SIGTERM handling for Spot interruptions.

Fargate Spot Containers (70 % cheaper) is a free AWS architecture template built with CloudWatch, ECS, Fargate, IAM, Load Balancer and SQS. Open it in TheArchitect to edit the diagram, estimate monthly cost, and export the CloudFormation or Terraform that deploys it.

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Job QueueECS Cluster (S…Fargate Task (…Internal ALB (…Task Execution…Queue Depth Al…
Fargate Spot Containers (70 % cheaper) architecture diagram

AWS services in this template

  • CloudWatch
  • ECS
  • Fargate
  • IAM
  • Load Balancer
  • SQS

Deployment notes

Needs input

  • Configure FARGATE_SPOT capacity provider with a base=0, weight=1 strategy. Add FARGATE provider as fallback with weight=0 (Spot-only by default).
  • Handle SIGTERM: on Spot reclaim (30-second warning), drain in-flight work and dequeue back to SQS.
  • Cost: Fargate on-demand ~$0.04048/vCPU/hr. Fargate Spot ~$0.012/vCPU/hr (~70 % less).
  • Not suitable for stateful or latency-sensitive work. Best for batch, async processing, worker queues.

Generated CloudFormation — 6 resources

Logical IDResource type
JobQueuesqsAWS::SQS::Queue
ECSClusterSpotecsAWS::ECS::Cluster
FargateTask05vCPUfargateAWS::ECS::TaskDefinition
InternalALBoptionalelbAWS::ElasticLoadBalancingV2::LoadBalancer
TaskExecutionRoleiamAWS::IAM::Role
QueueDepthAlarmcloudwatchAWS::CloudWatch::Alarm
View the full CloudFormation template
{
  "AWSTemplateFormatVersion": "2010-09-09",
  "Description": "Generated by TheArchitect — https://www.thecloudarchitect.dev",
  "Metadata": {
    "TheArchitect": {
      "Edges": [
        {
          "From": "QueueDepthAlarmcloudwatch",
          "To": "ECSClusterSpotecs",
          "Label": "scale trigger"
        },
        {
          "From": "FargateTask05vCPUfargate",
          "To": "JobQueuesqs",
          "Label": "consume jobs"
        },
        {
          "From": "TaskExecutionRoleiam",
          "To": "FargateTask05vCPUfargate",
          "Label": "execution role"
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "Resources": {
    "JobQueuesqs": {
      "Type": "AWS::SQS::Queue",
      "Properties": {
        "QueueName": "cost-fargate-jobs",
        "VisibilityTimeout": 120,
        "MessageRetentionPeriod": 86400,
        "ReceiveMessageWaitTimeSeconds": 20
      }
    },
    "ECSClusterSpotecs": {
      "Type": "AWS::ECS::Cluster",
      "Properties": {
        "ClusterName": "cost-fargate-spot-cluster",
        "ClusterSettings": [
          {
            "Name": "containerInsights",
            "Value": "enabled"
          }
        ]
      }
    },
    "FargateTask05vCPUfargate": {
      "Type": "AWS::ECS::TaskDefinition",
      "DependsOn": [
        "TaskExecutionRoleiam"
      ],
      "Properties": {
        "Family": "cost-fargate-worker",
        "Cpu": "512",
        "Memory": "1024",
        "NetworkMode": "awsvpc",
        "RequiresCompatibilities": [
          "FARGATE"
        ],
        "ExecutionRoleArn": {
          "Fn::GetAtt": [
            "TaskExecutionRoleiam",
            "Arn"
          ]
        },
        "TaskRoleArn": {
          "Fn::GetAtt": [
            "TaskExecutionRoleiam",
            "Arn"
          ]
        }
      }
    },
    "InternalALBoptionalelb": {
      "Type": "AWS::ElasticLoadBalancingV2::LoadBalancer",
      "Properties": {
        "Type": "application",
        "Scheme": "internal"
      }
    },
    "TaskExecutionRoleiam": {
      "Type": "AWS::IAM::Role",
      "Properties": {
        "RoleName": "cost-fargate-task-exec-role",
        "Description": "ECS task execution role — ECR pull + CloudWatch Logs + SQS consume",
        "AssumeRolePolicyDocument": {
          "Version": "2012-10-17",
          "Statement": [
            {
              "Effect": "Allow",
              "Principal": {
                "Service": "ecs-tasks.amazonaws.com"
              },
              "Action": "sts:AssumeRole"
            }
          ]
        },
        "ManagedPolicyArns": [
          "arn:aws:iam::aws:policy/service-role/AmazonECSTaskExecutionRolePolicy"
        ]
      }
    },
    "QueueDepthAlarmcloudwatch": {
      "Type": "AWS::CloudWatch::Alarm",
      "Properties": {
        "AlarmName": "cost-fargate-queue-depth",
        "AlarmDescription": "Scale ECS service when SQS queue depth > 5 unprocessed messages",
        "Namespace": "AWS/SQS",
        "MetricName": "ApproximateNumberOfMessagesVisible",
        "Statistic": "Average",
        "Period": 60,
        "EvaluationPeriods": 2,
        "Threshold": 5,
        "ComparisonOperator": "GreaterThanThreshold",
        "TreatMissingData": "notBreaching"
      }
    }
  }
}

Generated by TheArchitect from the diagram above. Review values such as names, CIDR ranges and instance sizes before deploying to your account.

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