Which AWS service helps in automating the deployment of applications on EC2 instances?

AWS Elastic Beanstalk is a platform as a service (PaaS) designed to simplify the deployment and management of applications on AWS. It automates various processes involved in deploying web applications, including provisioning servers, load balancing, auto-scaling, and application health monitoring. When using Elastic Beanstalk, you simply upload your code, and the service takes care of the rest, automatically handling the environment and infrastructure required to run the application.

With Elastic Beanstalk, developers can focus more on writing code rather than managing the underlying infrastructure. It is particularly useful for those looking for a straightforward deployment method without the complexities of configuring servers or applications manually.

On the other hand, AWS CodeDeploy is a service specifically for automating application deployments across a variety of compute services, including EC2, but it requires more configuration and does not provide the full platform management capabilities that Elastic Beanstalk offers. AWS CloudFormation is primarily used for infrastructure as code, allowing users to define and manage AWS resources through templates but does not inherently deploy applications. AWS OpsWorks is a configuration management service that helps you manage applications and servers, but it involves more setup and maintenance compared to the seamless experience provided by Elastic Beanstalk.