Cloud Architecture Series
NAT Gateway vs NAT Instance
Architecting for scale: Understanding the critical differences in high availability, throughput, and management overhead for AWS workloads.
The Comparison Matrix
Availability
How the system handles failure and redundancy.
Gateway: Managed redundancy.
Instance: Manual failover scripts.
Throughput
Data transfer speeds and scaling limits.
Gateway: Scales to 45 Gbps+.
Instance: Tied to Instance Type.
Maintenance
Operational effort required for upkeep.
Gateway: Zero (Managed service).
Instance: Patching, OS updates.
Security
Control over traffic and filtering.
Gateway: Security Groups NOT used.
Instance: Full SG & NACL control.
Traffic Flow Architecture
Visualizing how private resources reach the public internet