title: Are reported load averages accurate on AWS EC2 instances?
body: <p>When calling functions like <code>uptime</code> (bash) or <code>sys_getloadavg</code> (php) on EC2 instances, are the returned values correct for that specific instance, or are they for the entire bare-metal system that my instance resides on?</p>
  
  <p>I've been searching around for an answer on Google, and I've found <a href="https://forums.aws.amazon.com/thread.jspa?threadID=67697" rel="nofollow noreferrer">older posts</a> saying not to trust those values; that CloudWatch should be used instead.</p>
  
  <p>However, I'm starting doubt that's the case; on a freshly spawned Ubuntu instance that has idled for 20 minutes, <code>uptime</code> is reporting:</p>
  
  <pre><code>07:22:23 up 20 min,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>For my use-case, I don't need features CloudWatch provides - the load averages are just fine. That said, are the reported values trustworthy?</p>