Amazon BedrockPaid
AWS's fully managed service for accessing foundation models from multiple providers, with agents, guardrails, and knowledge bases built in.
AI Infrastructure comparison
Amazon Bedrock vs Amazon Bedrock AgentCore
Pricing, pros, cons, and ideal use cases — side by side.
Amazon Bedrock AgentCoreEnterprise
AWS framework-agnostic runtime for deploying, securing, evaluating, and governing production agents at scale.
At a glance
| Amazon Bedrock | Amazon Bedrock AgentCore | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | PaidUsage-based pricing (per token, or provisioned throughput). Billed through AWS. | EnterpriseConsumption-based AWS pricing across the AgentCore services, billed alongside the rest of your AWS spend. Model inference is billed separately through Bedrock or your chosen provider. |
| Category | AI Infrastructure | AI Infrastructure |
| Ideal for | Enterprises already standardized on AWSTeams needing models inside their cloud security perimeterRegulated organizations with strict compliance needs | Enterprises already running on AWSPlatform teams standardizing an agent runtimeOrganizations needing session isolation and policy enforcementTeams moving agent prototypes into governed production |
Pros & cons
Amazon Bedrock
Pros
- Multiple model providers through one managed service
- Stays inside AWS security, IAM, and compliance
- Managed RAG, agents, and guardrails included
- Familiar billing and governance for AWS shops
Cons
- Ties your AI stack to AWS
- Features can lag native provider platforms
- Pricing and quota management add complexity
Amazon Bedrock AgentCore
Pros
- Framework-agnostic — keep LangGraph, CrewAI, or a custom loop
- Managed identity, memory, gateway, and observability primitives
- Evaluations and Harness cover both production monitoring and pre-production testing
- Policy controls give security teams enforceable guardrails
- Inherits AWS compliance and regional footprint
Cons
- Only sensible if you are already committed to AWS
- Consumption pricing across several services is hard to forecast up front
- Component-by-component GA rollout means capability varies by region
- Steeper learning curve than a hosted agent platform
Which should you choose?
Amazon Bedrock is the lighter-weight option (Paid), while Amazon Bedrock AgentCore sits higher on the pricing ladder (Enterprise). Amazon Bedrock is built around enterprises already standardized on aws; Amazon Bedrock AgentCore leans more toward enterprises already running on aws. Shortlist the one whose strengths line up with your biggest constraint.