Quay vs Amazon Elastic Container Registry

Quay9.3Visit Amazon Elastic Container Registry8.8Visit

Higher score Quay #2 in Container Registries 9.3/10 Free plan · 30-day trial Free planFree trial✓ 4 of 4 features Visit Quay

vs

Amazon Elastic Container Registry #7 in Container Registries 8.8/10 Paid ✓ 4 of 4 features Visit Amazon ECR

• Quay fits best

  Open-source teams needing hosted or self-hosted options

• Amazon Elastic Container Registry fits best

  AWS-native container workloads

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Side by side

Feature	Quay 9.3/10 Visit ↗	Amazon Elastic Container Registry 8.8/10 Visit ↗
At a glance
Editor score	9.3	8.8
Ranking	#2 in Container Registries	#7 in Container Registries
Best for	Open-source teams needing hosted or self-hosted options	AWS-native container workloads
Pricing model	Free plan + paid	Paid
Starting price	Free plan · 30-day trial	$0.10/GB/mo
Free plan	✓ (best)	—
Free trial	30 days	—
Deployment	Cloud, Self-hosted	Cloud
Platforms	Web	Web
Support	Phone, Tickets, Community, Docs	Docs
Integrations	5 integrations	7 integrations
Built for	Solo, Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise	Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise
Features Quay 4/4 · Amazon Elastic Container Registry 4/4
Image scanning	✓	✓
OCI artifacts	✓	✓
Immutable tags	✓	✓
Retention policies	✓	✓
Specs
Replication scope	Multi-region	Multi-region
Included storage	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Maximum image size	Not checked yet	Not checked yet
Our review
Pros	Automated vulnerability scanning with Clair OCI 1.1 referrers, immutable tags, and retention policies Mirroring and geo-replication for distributed repositories	Deep integration with ECS, EKS, Fargate, Lambda, and Elastic Beanstalk Scanning, immutable tags, lifecycle policies, signing, and encrypted storage Cross-Region and cross-account replication with pull-through caching
Cons	Project Quay and hosted Quay.io require a deployment choice Advanced controls may exceed basic image-storage needs Self-hosted deployment adds operational responsibility	Usage-based pricing requires cost planning rather than fixed subscription budgeting Its strongest fit is within the AWS ecosystem The 52,000 MiB layer limit may matter for unusually large layers
Our verdict	Quay is a container registry for developers and organizations that build, store, organize, scan, and distribute container images and other OCI artifacts. It supports web and API access, as well as self-hosted deployment. Project Quay is… Read the review →	Amazon Elastic Container Registry (Amazon ECR) is a fully managed registry for Docker and Open Container Initiative images and artifacts. It supports private and public repositories, with access through the web, APIs, Docker-compatible… Read the review →

Strengths and trade-offs

• Quay — where it wins

  • Automated vulnerability scanning with Clair
  • OCI 1.1 referrers, immutable tags, and retention policies
  • Mirroring and geo-replication for distributed repositories

  Where it doesn't

  • Project Quay and hosted Quay.io require a deployment choice
  • Advanced controls may exceed basic image-storage needs
  • Self-hosted deployment adds operational responsibility

• Amazon Elastic Container Registry — where it wins

  • Deep integration with ECS, EKS, Fargate, Lambda, and Elastic Beanstalk
  • Scanning, immutable tags, lifecycle policies, signing, and encrypted storage
  • Cross-Region and cross-account replication with pull-through caching

  Where it doesn't

  • Usage-based pricing requires cost planning rather than fixed subscription budgeting
  • Its strongest fit is within the AWS ecosystem
  • The 52,000 MiB layer limit may matter for unusually large layers

• Quay9.3/10 · Free plan · 30-day trial

  A flexible registry for teams that need hosted convenience or self-hosted control.

  Visit QuayFull verdict →
• Amazon Elastic Container Registry8.8/10 · Paid

  A capable AWS-native registry with strong controls, scanning, and multi-Region support.

  Visit Amazon ECRFull verdict →