Services or capabilities described in Amazon Web Services documentation might vary by Region. To see the differences applicable to the China Regions, see Getting Started with Amazon Web Services in China (PDF).

Compare AL1 and AL2

The following topics describe key differences between AL1 and AL2. They also contain information about lifespan and support, and package changes.

AL1 support and EOL

AL1 is now EOL. AL1 ended standard support as of December 31, 2020, and was in a maintenance support phase until December 31, 2023.

AL2 is supported until June 30, 2025. We recommend migrating to AL2023, as it is supported until 2028.

Support for Amazon Graviton processors

AL2 introduced support for Graviton processors. AL2023 is further optimized for Graviton processors.

systemd replaces upstart as init system

In AL2, systemd replaced upstart as the init system.

Python 2.6 and 2.7 were replaced with Python 3

Although AL1 marked Python 2.6 as EOL with the 2018.03 release, the packages were still in the repositories to install. AL2 shipped with Python 2.7 as the earliest supported Python version.

AL2023 completes the transition to Python 3, and no Python 2.x versions are included in the repositories.