---
title: Modernizing Frontend Delivery: Migrating from ECS to AWS Amplify
client: TargetBay
description: Migrated a React frontend from ECS to AWS Amplify, replacing persistent compute with edge-cached static hosting for lower latency, simplified operations, and reduced costs.
url: https://www.factualminds.com/case-study/ecs-to-aws-amplify/
category: Cloud Engineering
publishDate: 2025-06-18
updateDate: 2025-06-18
---

# Modernizing Frontend Delivery: Migrating from ECS to AWS Amplify

> Migrated a React frontend from ECS to AWS Amplify, replacing persistent compute with edge-cached static hosting for lower latency, simplified operations, and reduced costs.

## Challenge: Regional Latency and Operational Overhead with ECS-Hosted React Frontend

TargetBay's BayRewards frontend is a React application that powers customer engagement features including coupons, progress tracking, and real-time leaderboards. Initially deployed on EC2 and later migrated to ECS, the application serves tens of thousands of global users. Despite the ECS migration, several operational and performance issues persisted:

- **Regional Latency:** Users outside the primary AWS region — particularly in APAC — experienced consistently slow load times, degrading the engagement experience that BayRewards is designed to deliver.
- **Fragile Availability Model:** A single ECS cluster served as the sole point of failure. Any cluster-level issue risked taking the entire frontend offline.
- **High Operational Complexity:** Managing Docker registries, task definitions, ECS service updates, and container health monitoring for a static React frontend added significant operational overhead disproportionate to the workload's requirements.
- **Persistent Compute Costs:** The ECS deployment maintained fixed baseline compute costs around the clock, even during low-traffic periods when the application served minimal requests.

## Solution: Migrating React Frontend from ECS to AWS Amplify for Edge Delivery

FactualMinds migrated BayRewards from ECS to AWS Amplify, replacing container-based hosting with a fully managed, edge-distributed static hosting platform purpose-built for frontend applications.

**CI/CD and Deployment:**

- Connected TargetBay's GitHub monorepo to AWS Amplify Console
- Configured build settings (`npm ci && npm run build`) for consistent, reproducible builds
- Automated deployments triggered on push to `main` (production) and `develop` (staging) branches
- Enabled branch-based preview deployments for QA and design teams to review changes before merge

**Hosting and Distribution:**

- Amplify stores deployment artifacts in Amazon S3 with automatic versioning
- Amazon CloudFront (provisioned by Amplify) delivers the application from edge locations worldwide, eliminating regional latency
- SPA routing, redirects, and rewrites are handled natively by Amplify without custom server configuration

**DNS and Security:**

- Amazon Route 53 configured for DNS routing to `bayrewards.io`
- AWS Certificate Manager (ACM) TLS certificates provisioned and renewed automatically
- Optional AWS WAF integration available for additional request filtering

## AWS Services Used for Frontend Migration to Amplify

- **AWS Amplify Console** — Managed CI/CD, hosting, and preview deployments
- **Amazon S3 (via Amplify)** — Artifact storage with automatic versioning
- **Amazon CloudFront** — Global edge-cached content delivery
- **AWS Certificate Manager** — Automated TLS certificate provisioning and renewal
- **Amazon Route 53** — DNS management and routing
- **AWS WAF (optional)** — Web application firewall for request filtering

## Results: Global Edge Delivery and Zero Compute Baseline with AWS Amplify

The migration from ECS to Amplify delivered improvements across performance, reliability, operations, and cost:

- **Global edge delivery** with CloudFront serving the application from edge locations worldwide, significantly reducing latency for APAC and other previously underserved regions
- **Zero single points of failure** as Amplify's managed infrastructure eliminates cluster-level availability risks
- **Simplified operations** with no Docker images, task definitions, or ECS service configurations to manage — the entire deployment lifecycle is handled through Git push
- **Reduced compute costs** by eliminating persistent EC2/ECS compute in favor of pay-per-use static hosting with no baseline costs during low-traffic periods
- **Automated CI/CD with branch previews** enabling QA and design teams to review frontend changes in isolated environments before production deployment

---

For more on [DevOps pipeline setup and AWS Amplify migrations](/services/devops-pipeline-setup/), see our DevOps service page.

## Results

- **Content Delivery**: Global Edge via CloudFront
- **Single Points of Failure**: Zero
- **ECS/Docker Overhead**: Fully Eliminated
- **Baseline Compute Costs**: Eliminated (Pay-per-Use)

## AWS Services Used

- devops-pipeline-setup

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*Source: https://www.factualminds.com/case-study/ecs-to-aws-amplify/*