Instance Scheduler on AWS Alternative: ZopNight Compared
AWS's own scheduling solution covers more than most people think. Here is its real scope, checked against AWS documentation, and where ZopNight differs.
What Instance Scheduler on AWS covers
Instance Scheduler on AWS is an AWS Solution, not a managed service. AWS describes it as automating “the starting and stopping of various AWS services including Amazon EC2 and Amazon RDS instances”. It “leverages AWS resource tags and AWS Lambda” to do so across multiple Regions and accounts, and it can hibernate stopped EC2 instances (solution overview).
Its scope is wider than EC2 and RDS instances:
- Database clusters. AWS’s cost page says that “Amazon RDS, Amazon Aurora, Amazon Neptune, and Amazon DocDB scheduling all count as one ‘RDS’ service” (cost).
- Auto Scaling groups. Version 3.0.0 (June 2024) “added support for scheduling of ASG through the automatic creation of Scheduled Scaling Rules” (changelog).
How you deploy and run it
- You launch a hub stack from a CloudFormation template.
- Schedules and periods are stored in DynamoDB and managed through a Scheduler CLI or a CloudFormation custom resource (features).
- The hub defaults to a 5-minute scheduling interval and the UTC time zone.
- Cross-account scheduling works through AWS Organizations or a list of up to 40 spoke accounts (hub stack).
- The optional snapshot-before-stop is “not available for Amazon Aurora clusters”.
What it costs. The solution has no licence fee, but “you are responsible for the cost of the AWS services used while running Instance Scheduler”. AWS’s overview estimates about USD 13 a month in us-east-1, and the cost page gives larger examples.
When it is the right tool
If your estate is AWS only, your team is comfortable with CloudFormation and tags, and your schedules are simple weekday windows, Instance Scheduler is a good, cheap choice. It runs in your own accounts with no third party involved.
Where ZopNight differs
- More than one cloud. ZopNight uses the same schedule model on GCP and Azure: Compute Engine, GKE, Cloud SQL, Azure VMs, AKS and Azure flexible servers.
- More AWS resource types. Beyond EC2, RDS and ASGs, ZopNight can start and stop EKS clusters and node groups, ECS services, Lambda (through concurrency throttling), SageMaker notebooks, Beanstalk environments, App Runner and individual Kubernetes namespaces. See EKS scheduling.
- Ordered groups. Resources in a group start in tiers (storage, then databases, then compute, then apps) and stop in reverse, with a per-resource delay.
- Overrides with an expiry. You can keep something on tonight with a reason attached, and the override ends on its own. Nobody has to remember to re-tag the resource.
- Cost and recommendations alongside. Schedule recommendations come from the latest 21 days of metrics, and cost reports switch to billed cost once billing sync is set up.
| ZopNight | Instance Scheduler on AWS | |
|---|---|---|
| Clouds | AWS, GCP, Azure | AWS |
| AWS services | EC2, RDS, Aurora clusters, ASG, EKS, ECS, Lambda and more | EC2, RDS, Aurora, Neptune, DocumentDB, ASG |
| Configuration | Web UI, API or MCP | Tags, DynamoDB, CLI or CloudFormation custom resource |
| Default time zone | Set per schedule (IANA) | UTC, configurable |
| Running cost | See zop.dev/pricing | Your own Lambda, DynamoDB and related AWS charges |
One detail applies with either tool: stopping an EC2 instance discards instance-store data, which “does not persist if the instance is stopped, hibernated, or terminated” (EC2 docs). EBS volumes persist. Check which one your workloads rely on before you schedule them. More in EC2 scheduling.
Questions we get a lot.
If yours isn't here, email us and we'll answer directly.
Does Instance Scheduler on AWS support Aurora and Auto Scaling groups?
Yes. AWS's cost documentation counts Aurora, Neptune and DocumentDB scheduling under the RDS service, and version 3.0.0 added ASG scheduling through scheduled scaling rules.
Is Instance Scheduler on AWS free?
There is no licence fee, but you pay for the AWS resources it deploys and uses, such as Lambda and DynamoDB. AWS's overview estimates about USD 13 a month in us-east-1 for its example configuration.
Can I move from Instance Scheduler to ZopNight gradually?
Yes. Connect ZopNight read-only first to see discovery and recommendations. When you move a resource over, remove its Instance Scheduler tag so only one tool controls it, and switch the account to read and write so ZopNight can run the schedule.