CI/CD with AWS: faster deployments, lower costs, and stronger security

Deploying to AWS should be fast, safe, and cost-efficient

AWS provides powerful cloud infrastructure, but manual deployments, rising costs, and security risks slow teams down. Without automation, releases take longer, infrastructure drifts out of sync, and deployments become unpredictable.

CircleCI is the leading CI/CD platform for automating AWS workflows. With CircleCI’s deep AWS integrations, teams can automate AWS deployments, manage infrastructure efficiently, and enforce security best practices — whether they’re deploying to EC2, ECS, Lambda, or S3.

What happens when AWS teams don’t use CI/CD?

Manual deployments slow down releases

Pushing updates manually leads to inconsistent environments, longer lead times, and deployment failures.

How to fix it:

• Automate deployments to EC2, ECS, Lambda, and S3 for faster, more consistent releases.
• Choose between full [continuous delivery (CD)] or manual approvals for production releases.

Infrastructure drift leads to unpredictable failures

Manually managing AWS resources creates inconsistent configurations across dev, staging, and production.

How to fix it:

• Automate provisioning using Terraform, CloudFormation, or Pulumi inside CI/CD workflows.
• Maintain infrastructure consistency with version-controlled configuration management.

Security vulnerabilities put AWS environments at risk

Hardcoded AWS credentials throughout the codebase increase security risks and compliance violations.

How to fix it:

• Use IAM roles and OpenID Connect (OIDC) authentication to remove the need for static AWS keys.
• Secure API keys and credentials with AWS Secrets Manager or Parameter Store.

Cloud costs spiral out of control

Inefficient deployments lead to high AWS bills from redundant EC2 instances, excessive Lambda executions, and over-provisioned resources.

How to fix it:

• Deploy only when necessary by triggering builds on meaningful changes.
• Reduce AWS costs with incremental rollouts, caching, and selective test execution.

How CircleCI makes AWS deployments effortless

CircleCI runs CI/CD pipelines on managed compute by default, but teams can also use self-hosted runners on AWS for deeper cloud integration.

• Automate AWS deployments: Automatically validate and ship changes to EC2, ECS, EKS, Lambda, and S3 with or without manual approval gates.
• Manage AWS infrastructure as code: Use Terraform, CloudFormation, or Pulumi inside CI/CD workflows for consistent and auditable resource provisioning.
• Secure AWS deployments – Authenticate using IAM roles and OIDC, and manage secrets with AWS Secrets Manager or your preferred secret store.
• Monitor AWS deployments: Send logs and metrics to AWS CloudWatch and AWS X-Ray for real-time visibility.
• Optimize AWS costs – Reduce EC2 runtime costs, automate auto-scaling configurations, and prevent unnecessary deployments.

AWS services that integrate with CircleCI

Compute & deployment targets

• Amazon EC2 – Automate deployments to virtual machines.
• Amazon ECS & EKS – Deploy and manage containerized workloads.
• AWS Lambda – Automate serverless function deployments.

Storage & artifact management

• Amazon S3 – Store deployment artifacts, logs, and static assets.
• Amazon EFS & FSx – Enable persistent storage across CI/CD workflows.

Infrastructure automation & DevOps

• AWS CloudFormation & Terraform – Automate AWS infrastructure provisioning.
• AWS Systems Manager – Manage configurations and security patches.

Security & access control

• AWS IAM roles & policies – Securely authenticate CI/CD pipelines without static credentials.
• AWS Secrets Manager & Parameter Store – Store API keys and environment variables securely.
• AWS CloudTrail & GuardDuty – Monitor and audit deployment activity.

CircleCI is the best CI/CD platform for AWS

AWS offers CodePipeline, but it locks teams into AWS-specific workflows and lacks flexibility. Jenkins requires ongoing maintenance and lacks built-in security features. All-in-one platforms tie CI/CD to source control but lack deep AWS integration, flexible workflows, and scalable execution.

Only CircleCI provides a fully managed, cloud-agnostic CI/CD solution with robust AWS support, enterprise-grade security, and the flexibility to adapt to any deployment strategy.

Why teams choose CircleCI for AWS deployments

• Deploy on your terms – Support for fully automated continuous delivery, gated approval workflows, or hybrid release strategies.

• No infrastructure headaches – Fully managed CI/CD, eliminating the maintenance burden of self-hosted solutions.

Secure by design – Use OIDC IAM role authentication to eliminate static AWS credentials and enforce security best practices.

• Frictionless AWS deployments – Automate releases to EC2, ECS, Lambda, and S3 with configurable workflows.

• Infrastructure as code, fully integrated – Run Terraform, Pulumi, or CloudFormation directly in CI/CD pipelines.

• Multi-cloud flexibility – Run workloads on AWS GCP, Vercel, and other cloud environments without lock-in.

• Available on AWS Marketplace – Simplify procurement and billing through AWS Marketplace, making it easier for enterprise teams to adopt CircleCI.

Get faster, safer AWS deployments with CircleCI

AWS applications need fast, secure, and cost-efficient CI/CD workflows to stay competitive. CircleCI helps teams automate deployments, manage infrastructure as code, and optimize AWS costs — all on the most powerful and customizable CI/CD platform available.

With deep AWS integration, enterprise-grade security, and flexible deployment options, CircleCI empowers teams to ship with confidence. Whether you’re scaling cloud-native applications or modernizing legacy workloads, CircleCI ensures every release meets the demands of performance, security, and scalability.

🚀 Sign up for a free CircleCI account to start automating AWS deployments.

🚀 Talk to our sales team or visit us on the AWS Marketplace to optimize your AWS CI/CD workflows.

🚀 Explore case studies to see how top companies use CircleCI for AWS deployments.