AWS Services Every Frontend Developer Should Know

When I first started working with AWS as a frontend developer, I honestly felt lost. AWS has 200+ services and most of them sound like they belong in a sci-fi movie 🙃. But here’s the good news: as a frontend dev, you don’t need to know all of them.

You just need the handful that help you host, deploy, and scale your web apps.

Here’s my breakdown of the AWS services that actually matter for frontend developers.

1. S3 (Simple Storage Service)

Think of this as a giant, reliable hard drive in the cloud.

Store your build output here (HTML, JS, CSS, fonts, images).
You can create multiple buckets for prod, staging, preprod, etc.
Supports versioning, so you can roll back to older builds if a release goes wrong.
You can also use S3 for user-uploaded assets (like profile pics, product images, docs).
Works well with CloudFront as the origin (S3 holds files, CloudFront delivers them fast).

💡 Pro tip: Don’t make your S3 bucket public. Always front it with CloudFront and use an Origin Access Control (OAC).

2. CloudFront (CDN)

S3 is great, but fetching files directly from one bucket is slow if your users are spread across the world. That’s where CloudFront comes in. It’s AWS’s Content Delivery Network (CDN).

Here’s what it gives you:

Global edge caching → Your assets are cached at servers close to your users.
HTTPS (TLS certificates) → Works seamlessly with AWS Certificate Manager.
Cache invalidation → When you release a new version, you don’t want users stuck with old index.html. You can run an invalidation (aws cloudfront create-invalidation) so CloudFront refreshes the cache immediately.
Flexible caching → Cache hashed assets (like app.123abc.js) for 1 year, and index.html for a few seconds. That way, you balance speed with fresh updates.
Edge functions (CloudFront Functions / Lambda\Edge) → You can do things like SPA routing (/about → /index.html), simple auth checks, or A/B testing headers.

💡 Pro tip: Use S3 + CloudFront combo for serving user images too. Your app uploads to S3, and CloudFront serves them globally at CDN speeds.

3. Route 53 (DNS)

You want myapp.com, not d12sd2ddaw.cloudfront.net.

Route 53 is AWS’s DNS service. It’s what maps your domain to your CloudFront distribution.

You don’t need to manage IP addresses (they change all the time).
Use Alias records → point directly to CloudFront.
Supports health checks and routing policies (like failover, latency-based routing).

💡 Pro tip: You can use one wildcard certificate (*.myapp.com) and Route 53 to easily manage multiple environments like staging.myapp.com, admin.myapp.com, etc.

4. ACM (AWS Certificate Manager)

Nobody likes http://.

ACM gives you free SSL/TLS certificates so your app runs on https://.

Supports wildcard certs (*.myapp.com) so you can cover staging, preprod, and admin all at once.
Fully managed → you don’t have to worry about renewing certs; AWS handles it.

💡 Pro tip: For CloudFront, certificates must be created in us-east-1 (N. Virginia) region.

5. IAM (Identity & Access Management)

This is all about permissions and security.

Instead of using your root AWS key (dangerous 🚨), create an IAM user/role with only the permissions your CI/CD needs.
Example: GitLab/GitHub pipeline deployer user →
- s3:PutObject (upload files)
- s3:DeleteObject (remove old files)
- cloudfront:CreateInvalidation (refresh cache after release)

💡 Pro tip: Use least privilege → give only the permissions required. Store keys as CI/CD secrets, never in your repo.

6. CloudWatch (Logs + Monitoring)

Stuff breaks in production. You’ll want visibility.

CloudWatch collects logs, metrics, and lets you set alarms. For frontend devs, it’s useful for:

CloudFront logs → see cache hit/miss ratios, errors, latency.
Lambda logs → if you’re using edge functions.
Alarms → get notified if error rates spike (e.g., many 5xx responses).

💡 Pro tip: Enable CloudFront access logs into S3 and then query them with Athena for debugging performance issues.

The Mental Model

If you remember nothing else, remember this:

S3 → Where my code & assets live
CloudFront → How my code & assets get delivered (fast, globally)
Route 53 + ACM → My domain + HTTPS
IAM → Who can deploy
CloudWatch → How I debug when things go wrong

Everything else depends on the project.

Final Thoughts

As frontend developers, we often think AWS is “for backend people”. But once you’ve set up a few projects, you’ll see the same pattern repeating: S3 + CloudFront + Route 53 + ACM.

That’s the foundation. Master those first. After that, explore more services only when your app needs them.

Visual Flow (ASCII Diagram)

Here’s how it all connects when someone opens your website:

   [ Browser ]  -- user types myapp.com
        │
        ▼
   [ Route 53 ]  -- DNS lookup, maps domain to CloudFront
        │
        ▼
   [ CloudFront CDN ] -- edge cache, SSL, invalidations, functions
        │
   (Cache hit? yes -> serve instantly)
        │
   (Cache miss -> fetch from S3 origin)
        │
        ▼
   [ S3 Bucket ]  -- stores build assets (HTML, JS, CSS, images)

✌️ That’s my take. If you’re a frontend dev already using AWS, what other services have you found useful?