--- title: Teleport vs. AWS SSM Session Manager | daily.dev description: A comparison of Teleport and AWS Systems Manager (SSM) Session Manager for managing SSH-like access to EC2 instances. Covers architecture differences... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/teleport-vs-aws-ssm-session-manager-qsi9rwdae twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Teleport vs. AWS SSM Session Manager | daily.dev og:description: A comparison of Teleport and AWS Systems Manager (SSM) Session Manager for managing SSH-like access to EC2 instances. Covers architecture differences... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/teleport-vs-aws-ssm-session-manager-qsi9rwdae og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/qSI9RwDAe.png og:image:alt: Teleport vs. AWS SSM Session Manager og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Teleport vs. AWS SSM Session Manager **[Teleport](https://daily.dev/sources/teleport)** · 10 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A comparison of Teleport and AWS Systems Manager (SSM) Session Manager for managing SSH-like access to EC2 instances. Covers architecture differences (Teleport's bastion/proxy model vs SSM's IAM-based agent approach), audit logging and session recording capabilities, Kubernetes/EKS support, end-user experience with tsh vs the aws CLI, and security considerations such as session tampering risks in SSM. Concludes with a detailed feature comparison table showing Teleport's advantages in open-source availability, native SSH compatibility, session sharing, and compliance modes, while SSM offers lower operational overhead for AWS-only shops. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What are the main security weaknesses of AWS SSM Session Manager compared to Teleport? SSM batches session logs locally on the node before uploading to CloudWatch and S3, so anyone with root on the instance can tamper with or hide activity by killing the ssm recording process before logout or blocking network access to CloudWatch and S3. Teleport instead offers a man-in-the-middle recording mode that captures sessions even if an instance-level agent is compromised, and streams events as JSON to DynamoDB or external log pipelines like ELK, Splunk, or Sumo Logic. _Teams weighing session-recording integrity between AWS SSM and Teleport can compare real-world tradeoffs on daily.dev._ ### Can I share an active SSH session with a coworker using AWS SSM Session Manager? No, AWS SSM Session Manager has no built-in interactive session sharing feature. Teleport supports this natively: running teleport status inside a session produces a unique session URL that can be shared with a coworker, provided they have matching Teleport RBAC permissions, making collaborative debugging or audits easier. _Developers evaluating remote-access tools for team collaboration can track comparisons like this on daily.dev._ ### Does AWS SSM Session Manager record sessions in readable plain text? Not reliably. Users have reported that SSM's handling of routine shell interactions, such as Control-C to cancel a running process, is inconsistent, and even though TERM=xterm-256color appears to work, the resulting session recordings in the SSM log review interface often show raw escape-encoded output rather than usable plain text. _Anyone auditing shell session logs across AWS SSM and alternatives can follow these details on daily.dev._ --- Tags: [#aws](https://daily.dev/tags/aws), [#ssh](https://daily.dev/tags/ssh) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/teleport-vs-aws-ssm-session-manager-qsi9rwdae) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Teleport vs. AWS SSM Session Manager","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/teleport-vs-aws-ssm-session-manager-qsi9rwdae","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/teleport-vs-aws-ssm-session-manager-qsi9rwdae"},"datePublished":"2026-08-23T12:23:09.125Z","dateModified":"2026-08-23T12:57:58.005Z","description":"A comparison of Teleport and AWS Systems Manager (SSM) Session Manager for managing SSH-like access to EC2 instances. Covers architecture differences...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OHB84bZF--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2010","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--OHB84bZF--/f_auto/v1722860399/public/Placeholder%2010","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Teleport","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Teleport","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--Dw-Bbw6O--/c_limit,w_256/f_auto,q_auto/v1787487494/logos/teleport?_a=BAMAMicg0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/teleport"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/teleport-vs-aws-ssm-session-manager-qsi9rwdae","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"aws,ssh","timeRequired":"PT10M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Teleport","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/teleport"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Teleport vs. AWS SSM Session Manager"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/teleport-vs-aws-ssm-session-manager-qsi9rwdae#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What are the main security weaknesses of AWS SSM Session Manager compared to Teleport?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"SSM batches session logs locally on the node before uploading to CloudWatch and S3, so anyone with root on the instance can tamper with or hide activity by killing the ssm recording process before logout or blocking network access to CloudWatch and S3. Teleport instead offers a man-in-the-middle recording mode that captures sessions even if an instance-level agent is compromised, and streams events as JSON to DynamoDB or external log pipelines like ELK, Splunk, or Sumo Logic. Teams weighing session-recording integrity between AWS SSM and Teleport can compare real-world tradeoffs on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Can I share an active SSH session with a coworker using AWS SSM Session Manager?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"No, AWS SSM Session Manager has no built-in interactive session sharing feature. Teleport supports this natively: running teleport status inside a session produces a unique session URL that can be shared with a coworker, provided they have matching Teleport RBAC permissions, making collaborative debugging or audits easier. Developers evaluating remote-access tools for team collaboration can track comparisons like this on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Does AWS SSM Session Manager record sessions in readable plain text?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Not reliably. Users have reported that SSM's handling of routine shell interactions, such as Control-C to cancel a running process, is inconsistent, and even though TERM=xterm-256color appears to work, the resulting session recordings in the SSM log review interface often show raw escape-encoded output rather than usable plain text. Anyone auditing shell session logs across AWS SSM and alternatives can follow these details on daily.dev."}}]} ```