🔐 New: A CISO’s benchmark for authorization maturity ➔ [Download the ebook](https://solutions.cerbos.dev/authorization-maturity-model-a-cisos-benchmark)

# Deploy Cerbos on Amazon EC2

Run the Cerbos PDP on EC2 instances as a standalone binary or container alongside your application workloads.

[Binary installation](https://docs.cerbos.dev/cerbos/latest/installation/binary.html)[Container installation](https://docs.cerbos.dev/cerbos/latest/installation/container.html)

### Binary or container

Run Cerbos as a native binary managed by systemd or as a Docker container on your EC2 instances

### Full control

Choose your instance type, networking, and scaling strategy to match your performance requirements

### Stateless scaling

Place Cerbos behind an ALB or NLB and scale horizontally with Auto Scaling Groups

## What is Cerbos?

Cerbos is an open-source authorization layer that decouples access control from your application code. It runs as a stateless Policy Decision Point (PDP) that evaluates fine-grained policies at request time.

Authorization policies are written in human-readable YAML supporting [RBAC](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/rbac/index.html), [ABAC](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/abac/index.html), and [conditional rules](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/pbac/index.html). They can be updated, tested, and deployed independently of your application.

Deploying Cerbos via Amazon EC2 gives you a production-ready authorization service that scales horizontally and fits naturally into your existing infrastructure and observability stack.

[Policy-as-codeHuman-readable YAML policies managed like source code](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/human-readable-authorization/index.html) [Scalable PDPStateless policy decision point with sub-millisecond latency](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/scalability/index.html) [Centralized managementManage, test, and deploy policies from a single control plane](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/centralized-management/index.html)

### How to deploy Cerbos on Amazon EC2

1. **Launch an EC2 instance**, Choose an instance type and configure security groups to allow traffic on the Cerbos HTTP (3592) and gRPC (3593) ports.
2. **Install Cerbos**, Download the static binary or run the official Docker container image on the instance.
3. **Configure policy loading**, Point Cerbos at a local policy directory, Git repository, or Cerbos Hub for policy storage.
4. **Connect your application**, Use a Cerbos SDK to send authorization checks from your services to the PDP.

## FAQ

### How do I deploy Cerbos on EC2?

Download the Cerbos binary onto your EC2 instance and run it as a systemd service, or use Docker to run the official Cerbos container image. Configure your policy source and expose the gRPC and HTTP ports.

### Does Cerbos require any external dependencies?

No. Cerbos is a single static binary with no external dependencies. It requires no database or message queue. Policies load from the filesystem, a Git repository, or Cerbos Hub.

### How should I scale Cerbos on EC2?

Run Cerbos on multiple EC2 instances behind a load balancer. Cerbos is stateless, so each instance operates independently with no coordination required.

## Cerbos + Amazon EC2

- Cerbos runs alongside your workloads in Amazon EC2
- No external databases or message queues required
- Built-in metrics, distributed tracing, and structured logging
- Stateless PDP instances scale horizontally