Interface Endpoint VS Elastic Network Interface (ENI)

Interface Endpoints actually use ENIs under the hood to provide their functionality.

Interface Endpoints:

• These are VPC endpoints that enable you to privately connect your VPC to supported AWS services (like S3, DynamoDB, etc.)

• They are powered by AWS PrivateLink

• Create a private entry point within your VPC that AWS services can be accessed through

• Have their own DNS entries and security groups

• Main purpose is to keep traffic between your VPC and AWS services within the AWS network, avoiding the public internet

Elastic Network Interfaces (ENIs):

• These are virtual network cards that you can attach to EC2 instances

• More general-purpose networking component that provides network connectivity to AWS resources

• Can have multiple private IP addresses, public IP addresses, and security groups

• Can be moved between instances (useful for failover scenarios)

• Main purpose is to provide network connectivity for EC2 instances and other AWS resources