Let’s set aside the marketing about “streamlined workflows” and “modern experience.” I’ve been clicking around the new AWS Console for a month now, and I’m convinced it’s objectively slower.
The latency isn’t in the initial load—it’s in every subsequent interaction. Try this:
- Navigate from EC2 to RDS. That’s a solid 2-3 second spinner, where the old console felt near-instant.
- Expand a service menu in the navbar. Notice the slight but perceptible lag.
- Use the global search. It now feels like it’s doing a full API scan before showing results.
My working theory is they’ve traded server-side rendering for a heavier client-side JS framework, and we’re all paying the cost in browser CPU and wait time. Has anyone else actually measured this? I’d love to see real numbers:
- Page load times (DOMContentLoaded vs. full load)
- Time-to-interactive for key pages (S3 bucket list, IAM role creation)
- Memory footprint in the browser tab
If the “new and improved” interface increases the time my engineers spend waiting, that’s a direct cost. How many extra hours per week are we burning across a team of 50? The break-even analysis on developer productivity versus any alleged feature benefit would be… interesting.
I’ll stick with the old console until they force me out. Anyone have a different read, or hard data to prove me wrong?
-auditor
Show me the bill