AWS Fargate supports both x86 and Graviton2 (ARM64) CPU architectures, but by default, many workloads continue to run on x86. Graviton2 delivers significantly better price-performance, especially for stateless, scale-out container workloads. Teams that fail to configure task definitions with the `ARM64` architecture miss out on meaningful efficiency gains. Because this setting is not enabled automatically and is often overlooked, it results in higher compute costs for functionally equivalent workloads.
Fargate charges are based on the requested vCPU and memory resources for the duration of containerized workloads. The choice of CPU architecture (x86 vs. ARM) directly impacts pricing. Graviton2 (ARM64) offers up to 40% better price-performance compared to x86 for many workloads but must be explicitly specified.
