AWS Management Console Features

Unified search and navigation

Use Unified Search to find the services you need or expand the Services menu in the global top navigation bar that follows you wherever you go in the Console. Just click Services from any page to see a full list of AWS services. Unified Search also allows you to find features (e.g., Users), resources (e.g., Production EC2 instance), blogs (e.g., Implementing Auto Scaling for EC2 Mac Instances), AWS Documentation (e.g., troubleshooting guides), knowledge articles (e.g., Set Your Preferences for AWS Emails), tutorials (e.g., Remotely Run Commands on an EC2 Instance), events (e.g., AWS Container Day), and AWS Marketplace products (e.g., Splunk) without leaving the the Console. You can quickly access the search bar using a keyboard shortcut (alt-s or option-s), autocomplete by using the right arrow key, and quickly navigate to the top result by pressing the enter key.

Free Tier

Explore more than 60 products that come with a free tier and start building on AWS. Three different types of free offers are available depending on the product used. See the free tier page for more details.

Tutorials, documentation, on-demand webinars, and more

The Console offers a wide variety of learning resources, including use case articles, documentation, Getting Started tutorials, on-demand webinars, and reference deployment templates. They’re all easy to find on the Console home page.

Automated wizards and workflows

The Console provides an assortment of simplified and automated workflows and wizards that make it easier to test and build with AWS services. Launch a virtual machine, connect an IoT device, or start a development project. You can deploy and test a wide range of solutions using one or more AWS services.

Compatibility with CLIs, SDKs, and other developer tools

The Management Console provides a number of organized and human-friendly ways to review, monitor, and interact with resources that you have created using developer tools, like the AWS Command Line Interface (CLI) and AWS CloudFormation templates. The console can also help you visually discover and get hands-on quickly with the functionality of a service, even if you plan to build and deploy your applications and infrastructure programmatically.

AWS Marketplace

The Management Console takes you quickly to the AWS Marketplace, a digital catalog with thousands of software listings from independent software vendors. The AWS Marketplace makes it easy to find, test, buy, and deploy software that runs on AWS.

Configuring settings

Customize settings that persist across services anywhere you log in. When you are signed in on the Console, select the gear icon at the top right of the navigation bar and select settings. You can configure settings like the default Region you want to load after sign in, visual mode, your preferred language, and how favorite services display in the favorites bar.

The customizable Console Home

Customize your Console Home with widgets featuring information about your services and resources. The Console Home provides an overview of your AWS infrastructure across multiple AWS Regions and services, so you can monitor cost and usage, view important events, understand changes affecting your AWS environment, learn about AWS best practices, and more, all in one place. You can customize your Console
Home experience by adding, removing, resizing, and rearranging widgets to display the information that is
relevant to you. The experience will be persisted on the user account level across browsers and devices.

Managing favorites

You can add or remove the services you use to favorites in the Console. Once you hover over any service name, you can add or remove the service to the favorite section by clicking on the star next to the service name. On mobile or tablet, you can add or remove the service to the favorite section by clicking on the star next to the service name.

Billing & Cost Management dashboard

Monitor your service usage, budget your costs, pay your AWS bill, and update your billing information—all from the Billing and Cost Management Dashboard. You can also set an alert to receive a notification if your costs exceed a specific level that you have set.

User roles and access management

Securely manage access to all your AWS services and resources. You can use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to create and manage AWS users and groups. You can also set permissions to allow and deny users access to AWS resources.

System health monitoring

Monitor system-wide health, respond to performance changes, and optimize your resource utilization. With AWS CloudWatch, you get monitoring and operational data in the form of logs, metrics, and events, providing you with a unified view of your AWS resources, applications, and services that run on AWS and on-premises servers. 

Access your applications using the myApplications widget on the Console home page

From the home page of the AWS Management Console, select an application from the myApplications widget and quickly access the myApplication dashboard to monitor and manage the selected application. You can also create a new application from this widget. 

View key metrics for multiple applications on the myApplications on AWS page 

View costs of application resources, number of critical security findings, and resource metrics for multiple applications on the myApplications on AWS page. 

Assess application health, performance and operations from the myApplication dashboard

Access cost, security, and operations metrics and insights for an application on a single-page. Evaluate application health and performance using alarms, canaries, and service level objectives, security findings, and cost trends. Find compute metrics summaries and optimizations, manage resource compliance and configuration status from AWS Systems Manager, and quickly access your application resources indexed in AWS Resource Explorer. If you see a metric you want to drill down on, click on it to go directly into the relevant service console and dive deeper.

Create new applications 

Create new applications and organize added resources in 3 easy steps: add a name and description, select resources to add to your application, and confirm. Your application will display in the myApplication dashboard, so you can take action in the AWS Management Console, APIs, CLI, SDKs. You can copy Infrastructure as code (IaC) generated during the create flow using Actions on the myApplication dashboard, and add it you your IaC tooling such as AWS CloudFormation and Terraform to create your application, add resources as they are created, and view the myApplications dashboard.

Support Center

You’ll find a link to the Support Center at the top of every Console page. Use this to submit support tickets to our experts, find “how to” articles and videos, and track the status of your support requests.

Feedback button

Tell us about your experience using the Console by clicking the Feedback button. After you log in to the Console, you’ll find the button at the bottom of every page.