What benefit do NAT Gateways have compared to NAT Instances?

NAT Gateways provide significant advantages over NAT Instances, primarily due to their design and functionality, which lead to reduced operational complexity for users. One of the key benefits of using NAT Gateways is that they require minimal administration. Unlike NAT Instances, which are just EC2 instances configured to act as a NAT, NAT Gateways are fully managed by AWS. This means that AWS takes care of the underlying infrastructure, including maintenance, patching, and scaling.

Moreover, NAT Gateways are designed to be highly available within an Availability Zone. When configured, they automatically handle failures and can scale according to demand. This minimized need for manual intervention and the inherent high availability make them a more robust choice for many workloads needing outbound internet access.

In contrast, NAT Instances require more management, including monitoring, scaling, and ensuring high availability through the configuration of multiple instances, which increases complexity and potential points of failure. As a result, the streamlined operation and reliable performance of NAT Gateways make them a favorable option for many cloud architectures.