AWS Well-Architected Framework History and Timeline - Pillars, Best Practices, Lenses, and the Well-Architected Tool
First Published:
Last Updated:
AWS tracks these changes in three revision tables: Document revisions for the Framework's whitepaper, Document revisions for the AWS Well-Architected Tool's user guide, and Document revisions for most lens whitepapers. These three tables differ in how they are dated and the granularity of the rows. There are instances where the same event is recorded with different dates in different tables.
This article aligns these three revision tables with What's New announcements, listing events from the whitepaper's publication on 2015-10-01 through 2026-06-16. Each row specifies which document the date refers to. When different documents record the same event with different dates, the article creates separate rows for each source, rather than combining them. As far as this article checked, there were seven such events.
The central question this article seeks to answer is: what remains of existing reviews after the Framework and lenses are revised? According to the Tool's user guide, the answer is as follows: New versions of the lenses are used with newly defined workloads. Existing workloads continue to use the original version, and the Tool will notify users that this version is not the latest. Before upgrading, a milestone is created to preserve the previous state, and answers to existing questions are carried over. Once upgraded, it is not possible to revert to the original version. Even if a lens is removed from a workload, its data remains.
Background and Method of Creating AWS Well-Architected Framework Historical Timeline
This section first outlines the sources from which the timeline draws its dates and the criteria used to organize the rows. All references were accessed on 2026-09-25.The Three Revision Tables This Timeline Uses
The first is the Document revisions table from the Framework whitepaper. On the verification date, the table had 18 rows, ranging from the oldest date of 2015-10-01 to the most recent of 2024-11-06. Each row has three columns: Change, Description, and Date. ⚠ When reading the page as text, the date appears after the description for each row. If you group the date with the heading of the following row, all dates are shifted by one.The second is the Document revisions table from the AWS Well-Architected Tool user guide. On the verification date, this table had 46 rows, from the Tool's general availability date of 2018-11-29 to the most recent date of 2025-10-13. The page displays
Latest documentation update: October 13, 2025.The third consists of the Document revisions tables of the lenses. Most lenses have a separate table that gives the initial publication date and any revision dates. This article examined revision tables for 22 lenses, including the Serverless Applications Lens, High Performance Computing Lens, IoT Lens, Machine Learning Lens, SaaS Lens, Generative AI Lens, Responsible AI Lens, and Agentic AI Lens, as well as the DevOps Guidance revision table. The whitepaper for the Sustainability pillar also uses a similar revision table format.
What's New announcements supplement these tables. The dates listed under
Posted on were used. There were 40 What's New announcements tagged AWS Well-Architected Tool, ranging from the oldest date of 2018-11-29 to the most recent of 2025-11-18. ⚠ The list obtained using tags is not exhaustive. The announcement for the Enterprise Support review from 2016-09-22 and the announcement for AWS Partner Central from 2026-06-16 were found through a full-text search, as they do not have this tag.In addition, the following resources were used: an AWS News Blog post from 2015-10-02, an AWS Architecture Blog post from 2020-07-09, and the AWS Well-Architected product page as archived by the Internet Archive in 2017.
What Became a Row
The following items were included in the timeline:- Framework Revisions: This includes the addition and rearrangement of pillars, revisions to questions and best practices, and revisions that the revision table classifies as Major update.
- Tool Functionality: This refers to dates when new functionality was added or removed related to recording reviews, managing versions, sharing, and extensibility.
- Lenses: This encompasses the first lenses, the addition of lenses to the Tool, the removal of lenses from the Tool, additions to the Lens Catalog, and lenses designed for AI workloads.
Minor updates that only corrected links or wording, additions of Regions and languages to the Tool, and changes to managed policies were not included. Similarly, apart from lenses for AI workloads, lenses first published in or after December 2025, such as the Life Sciences Lens, Telco Lens, and Microsoft Workloads Lens, were not included. A total of 50 rows were selected based on these criteria. In other words, please note that the items on this timeline are not all updates to AWS Well-Architected, but are representative updates that I have picked out.
Different Documents Record Different Dates for the Same Event
This article particularly focused on instances where different sources record the same event with different dates. As far as this article checked, the following seven events fall into this category. The timeline does not reduce them to one date; it places one row per source.| Event | Recorded In | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Initial publication of the Framework | Framework revisions | 2015-10-01 |
| Initial publication of the Framework | AWS News Blog | 2015-10-02 |
| Workload sharing | Tool revisions | 2020-01-09 |
| Workload sharing | What's New | 2020-01-10 |
| New version of the Framework (2020) | Framework revisions | 2020-07-08 |
| New version of the Framework (2020) | What's New / AWS Architecture Blog | 2020-07-09 |
| Addition of the Sustainability pillar | Framework revisions | 2021-11-20 |
| Addition of the Sustainability pillar | Framework revisions / What's New | 2021-12-02 |
| End of the FTR lens | Tool revisions (removes) | 2022-12-14 |
| End of the FTR lens | What's New announcement note (deprecated) | 2023-01-31 |
| Release of the Generative AI Lens | Lens revisions | 2025-04-15 |
| Release of the Generative AI Lens | What's New / Tool revisions | 2025-04-17 |
| Release of the Responsible AI Lens | What's New | 2025-11-18 |
| Release of the Responsible AI Lens | Lens revisions | 2025-11-19 |
⚠ The Sustainability pillar has two rows in the Framework revision table itself. The row dated 2021-11-20 states,
Sustainability Pillar added to the framework. The row dated 2021-12-02 states, Added Sustainability Pillar and updated links. The What's New announcement was made on 2021-12-02. ⚠ The two dates for the FTR lens also use different words. The Tool revision table says the lens was removed from the Tool, while the What's New note says deprecated.Separately, there are two updates that became available in the Tool months after their date in the Framework whitepaper.
| Update | In the whitepaper | In the Tool |
|---|---|---|
| Sustainability Pillar | 2021-11-20 and 2021-12-02 | 2022-03-31 |
| Framework update (2024-11-06) | 2024-11-06 | 2025-04-09 |
The announcement for 2024-11-06 states that this update will be incorporated into the Tool in a future release. The announcement for 2025-04-09 states that the latest Framework update is now available in the Tool. ⚠ The 2025-04-09 announcement does not state which dated version it refers to. This article connects the two announcements because both mention 14 best practices and the Reliability pillar, and reference the year 2022.
2024-11-06: This update includes 14 newly refreshed best practices, including the Reliability Pillar,
representing the first major improvements since 2022.
2025-04-09: ... including the Reliability Pillar, with 14 of its best practices updated for the first time
since major Framework improvements started in 2022.⇒ The date the whitepaper is revised and the date the Tool's review begins using that revision may not be the same. The principle of which date to record among multiple dates is a topic addressed in Where the AWS Primary Sources Disagree About Launch Dates.
The Revision Tables Themselves Have Been Rewritten
The Framework revision table has rewritten the classification and description of past rows after the fact. The Framework whitepaper includes document paths for each version. Each path includes the version date, as inhttps://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/2023-10-03/framework/. Of the paths this article tried, five returned a revision table page on the verification date: 2022-03-31, 2023-04-10, 2023-10-03, 2024-06-27, and 2025-02-25. The paths for 2024-11-06 and 2025-04-09 did not return the page. When the four revision tables up to 2024-06-27 are compared with the latest page, the same rows are described using different wording.| Row | Earlier version paths | Wording in the earlier versions | Wording on the latest page |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-07-08 | 2022-03-31 to 2024-06-27 | Updates for new Framework | Major update |
| 2021-12-02 | 2022-03-31 to 2024-06-27 | Whitepaper updated | Major update |
| 2023-04-10 | 2023-04-10 to 2024-06-27 | Updates for new Framework | Major update |
| 2023-10-03 (Description) | 2023-10-03 | A description beginning with Major performance pillar restructure to bring number of best practice areas to five. | Major pillar updates. |
| 2024-06-27 | 2024-06-27 | Updated best practice guidance | Major update |
The wording for these classifications has been standardized to
Major update between the versions dated 2024-06-27 and 2025-02-25. The description for the row dated 2023-10-03 listed changes for each pillar in the 2023-10-03 version path, but from the 2024-06-27 version path onward it is the single sentence Major pillar updates.⇒ This article's timeline was compiled using the latest page for each classification and description. Rows that used different wording in older versions say so in the row.
⚠ On the verification date, the end of the latest page lists four dates under
Framework versions: – 2024-06-27, 2023-10-03, 2023-04-10, and 2022-03-31. Neither the most recent revision, 2024-11-06, nor 2025-02-25, whose path exists, is included in this list. The page does not explain what this list represents.Date Precision and the Starting Point of the Timeline
⚠ Dates through 2019 in the Framework revision table all fall on the 1st of the month. These include 2015-10-01, 2015-11-01, 2016-11-01, 2017-11-01, 2018-06-01, 2018-11-01, and 2019-07-01. The lens revision tables also include 2017-11-01 and 2018-11-01. The revision tables do not say whether these dates are days or records by month. This article writes these dates as they are and adds nothing about their precision.The timeline begins on 2015-10-01, although the Framework itself existed prior to that date. An AWS Architecture Blog post from 2020-07-09 describes the beginning of the Framework as follows:
However, this is actually the eighth version of the Framework since it was introduced in 2012.
...
The first three versions were purely internal releases ...
With the fourth version in 2015, we published our guidance as a whitepaper.Because the 2012 start has no date, this article does not make it a row. The timeline begins with the publication of the whitepaper on 2015-10-01.
Topics Covered in Other Articles
- Best practices for each pillar, along with a self-audit checklist — AWS Well-Architected - Practical Self-Audit Checklist by Pillar
- Threat modeling that uses best practices from the Generative AI Lens and the Agentic AI Lens — Threat Modeling Generative AI Applications on AWS
- Mapping security controls to the Security pillar of the Agentic AI Lens — OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications Mapped to AWS Controls
- Serverless design, referencing the Serverless Applications Lens — Event-Driven Serverless Architecture on AWS
- Identifiers that remain unchanged when AWS service names change — AWS Service Renames Reference
- Examples of features being reorganized and renamed within a single product — AWS History and Timeline regarding Amazon Connect
- A timeline of all AWS services — AWS History and Timeline
The Cost Optimization pillar is treated only as a pillar name; its content and pricing are outside the scope of this article. Explanations for each question in the lenses are also not covered.
AWS Well-Architected Framework Historical Timeline (Updates from October 1, 2015)
The following eight tables form the core of this article. They are organized into three categories – Framework revisions, Tool features, and lenses – and divided by period. Each table has the following columns:- Date — The date recorded in the material. For What's New items, this refers to the
Posted ondate. - Recorded In — The source of the date. This is one of
Framework revisions,Tool revisions,Lens revisions,What's New,AWS News Blog, orAWS Architecture Blog. If multiple sources recorded the same date, all are listed. - Summary — A description of what occurred. When quoting directly from the original material, the original wording is preserved.
Index:
- Framework 2015–2019 - The period when the Framework was initially published with four pillars, later expanded to five, with Operational Excellence moved to the front.
- Framework 2020–2021 - The period when new Framework versions became tied to Tool reviews and a sixth pillar was added.
- Framework 2023–2024 - The period of revisions that the revision table classifies as Major update.
- Tool 2016–2020 - The period when the Tool emerged from support reviews and a way to upgrade Framework versions was established.
- Tool 2021–2022 - The period when custom lenses and organizational sharing were added.
- Tool 2023–2026 - The period when Profiles, Review Templates, and the Lens Catalog were added.
- Lenses 2017–2023 - From the first lenses to the end of the FTR lens.
- Lenses 2024–2026 - The period involving additions to the Lens Catalog and the development of lenses for AI workloads.
* You can sort the table by clicking on the column name.
Framework 2015–2019 — Expanding from Four to Five Pillars
During the period from 2015 to 2019, the Framework's core pillars increased from four to five, and the order of these pillars was revised once. The questions were rewritten twice, in 2018.| Date | Recorded In | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2015-10-01 | Framework revisions | The Well-Architected Framework whitepaper was first published. The oldest row in the revision table is categorized as Initial publication and describes it as AWS Well-Architected Framework published. ⚠ The AWS News Blog announced the same publication on 2015-10-02 (in the next row). See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework |
| 2015-10-02 | AWS News Blog | The Framework was released with four core pillars. The article states, The AWS Well-Architected Framework is based around four pillars: listing Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, and Cost Optimization. ⇒ The 2015 version of the Framework does not include the Operational Excellence pillar. See: Are You Well-Architected? |
| 2016-11-01 | Framework revisions | The Operational Excellence pillar was added, bringing the total number of pillars to five. The revision table states Updated the Framework to include operational excellence pillar and notes that other pillars were also revised to reduce redundancy. ⚠ An Internet Archive snapshot of the product page from 2017-01-23 lists Operational Excellence as the last of the five pillars and indicates that its whitepaper is COMING SOON. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework / AWS Well-Architected (Internet Archive, 2017-01-23) |
| 2017-11-01 | Framework revisions | Operational Excellence was moved to the front of the pillars. The revision table states Operational Excellence moved to front of pillars and rewritten so it frames other pillars. The AWS Architecture Blog from 2020-07-09 mentions that in 2017, AWS released whitepapers for each pillar, as well as AWS Well-Architected Lenses. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework / Announcing the New Version of the Well-Architected Framework |
| 2018-06-01 | Framework revisions | The wording of the questions was simplified, and the format of the answers was standardized. The revision table describes this as Updates to simplify question text, standardize answers, and improve readability. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework |
| 2018-11-01 | Framework revisions | Most of the questions and answers were rewritten, and each question now addresses a single topic. The revision table notes that as a result, some previous questions were split into multiple questions. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework |
| 2019-07-01 | Framework revisions | The whitepaper now references AWS Well-Architected Tool, AWS Well-Architected Labs, and AWS Well-Architected Partners. The revision table states that the Tool, links to Labs, and Partners were added, and that fixes were made to support multiple language versions. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework |
Framework 2020–2021 — Versions Integrate with the Tool, Adding a Sixth Pillar
Starting in 2020, new versions of the Framework began to be announced in conjunction with Tool reviews. In 2021, a sixth pillar was added.| Date | Recorded In | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2020-07-08 | Framework revisions | Most questions and answers were reviewed and rewritten. The revision table describes this as Review and rewrite of most questions and answers. ⚠ What's New and the AWS Architecture Blog announced this version on 2020-07-09 (see below). See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework |
| 2020-07-09 | What's New / AWS Architecture Blog | The new version of the Framework is now available in the Tool. The announcement states that all new workloads defined in the Tool from this date forward will use the new version, and that existing workloads have the option to be upgraded. The AWS Architecture Blog refers to this version as the eighth iteration since the Framework was introduced in 2012, noting that three questions have been added under the Reliability pillar and one question has been removed from the Security pillar. See: Updates to the AWS Well-Architected Framework and the AWS Well-Architected Tool / Announcing the New Version of the Well-Architected Framework |
| 2021-11-20 | Framework revisions | The Sustainability pillar has been added to the Framework. The revision table describes this as Sustainability Pillar added to the framework. ⚠ The same revision table also includes a row on 2021-12-02 regarding the addition of the Sustainability pillar (see below). See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework |
| 2021-12-02 | Framework revisions / What's New | The Sustainability pillar was announced, bringing the total number of pillars to six. The revision table describes this as Added Sustainability Pillar and updated links. The announcement lists the previous pillars as Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, and Cost Optimization, and then introduces Sustainability as the new pillar. The revision table for the Sustainability pillar whitepaper also gives this date as the initial publication. ⚠ While announced on this date, the pillar became available in the Tool on 2022-03-31. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework / New Sustainability Pillar for the AWS Well-Architected Framework / Document revisions - Sustainability Pillar |
Framework 2023–2024 — Successive Major Revisions
In 2023 and in 2024, there were two revisions each that the revision table classifies as Major update. The update on 2024-11-06 is the most recent row in the revision table.| Date | Recorded In | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-04-10 | Framework revisions / What's New | Specific guidance has been added to the best practices, and new questions have been incorporated into the Security and Cost Optimization pillars. The announcement states that the new version is available for both the whitepaper and the Tool. ⚠ The revision table classifies this row as a Major update, but the version paths from 2023-04-10 to 2024-06-27 classify it as Updates for new Framework. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework / AWS Well-Architected Framework strengthens prescriptive guidance / Document revisions (2024-06-27 version) |
| 2023-10-03 | Framework revisions / What's New | Major updates were made to the pillars. The revision table simply states Major pillar updates. ⚠ The path for the 2023-10-03 version includes a lengthy description beginning with Major performance pillar restructure to bring number of best practice areas to five. The announcement states that the new version is available in the Tool. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework / Document revisions (2023-10-03 version) / New updates to the AWS Well-Architected Framework |
| 2024-06-27 | Framework revisions / What's New | Best practices were updated on a large scale throughout the pillars, and new best practices were added to both Security and cost. The announcement states that the update includes increased recommendations for AWS services, observability, generative AI, and operating models. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework / Updates and Expansion to the AWS Well-Architected Framework and Lens Catalog |
| 2024-11-06 | Framework revisions / What's New | The Reliability pillar received a large-scale refresh. The revision table states that best practices for Reliability, Security, Operational excellence, Sustainability, and Performance efficiency have been updated. ⚠ The announcement indicates that this update will be incorporated into the Tool in a future release. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Framework / AWS Well-Architected adds enhanced implementation guidance |
Tool 2016–2020 — From Support Reviews to the Tool
Before the Tool, Well-Architected reviews were offered as part of AWS Support. The year after the Tool became generally available, it became possible to upgrade the Framework version that a workload uses.| Date | Recorded In | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2016-09-22 | What's New | Well-Architected reviews are now offered as part of Enterprise Support. The announcement states that AWS Solutions Architects will review critical workloads. See: AWS Well-Architected Reviews now available with the Enterprise Support Plan |
| 2018-11-29 | Tool revisions / What's New | The AWS Well-Architected Tool is now generally available. The announcement describes how users can define workloads and answer questions across the five pillars of the Framework, resulting in a plan for improvement. On the same day, the AWS Well-Architected Partner Program was also announced. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / AWS Well-Architected Tool Now Available |
| 2019-05-01 | Tool revisions | The Framework version used for a workload review can now be upgraded. The revision table states: This release supports upgrading the version of the framework used for a workload review. ⇒ A workload review is tied to a specific version of the Framework. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool |
| 2020-01-09 | Tool revisions | Workloads can now be shared. The revision table states: This release adds workload sharing. ⚠ What's New announced it on 2020-01-10 (next row). See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool |
| 2020-01-10 | What's New | Workload Shares are now available. The announcement explains that users can create workloads in any AWS account and share them with other accounts within a review team or with a central account. See: Introducing Workload Shares in AWS Well-Architected Tool |
| 2020-07-08 | Tool revisions | It is now explicitly stated that once a workload is upgraded to a new lens, it cannot be reverted to the previous version. The revision table states: Clarified that after you upgrade a workload to use a new lens that you cannot go back to the previous version. In the Framework revision table, the row for the same day is the 2020 new version. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool |
| 2020-12-16 | Tool revisions / What's New | The Tool's API is now available. The announcement highlights potential uses such as integrating the Tool's data into centralized reporting tools and connecting identified risks to ticketing systems. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / APIs now available for the AWS Well-Architected Tool |
Tool 2021–2022 — Custom Lenses and Sharing within the Organization
During the period of 2021 and 2022, the Tool was enhanced to measure workloads not only based on AWS Framework and lens criteria, but also against other standards. In the same period, the Sustainability pillar entered the Tool.| Date | Recorded In | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2021-07-14 | Tool revisions / What's New | It is now possible to record individual best practices as "not applicable" and provide a reason. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / Mark individual best practices as not applicable within the AWS Well-Architected Tool |
| 2021-11-29 | What's New | Custom lenses are now available. The announcement states that customers can now create lenses that incorporate their own pillars, questions, best practices, reference materials, and improvement plans, and share them across multiple AWS accounts. ⚠ The Tool revision table does not include a row for the introduction of custom lenses. See: Customize your AWS Well-Architected Review using Custom Lenses |
| 2022-03-31 | Tool revisions / What's New | The Sustainability pillar is now available in the Tool. The announcement reflects on its introduction at re:Invent 2021 and states that it is available for use in workload reviews from this date. ⚠ The Framework revision table lists 2022-03-31 under Framework versions:, which is the same date as this row. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / Sustainability Pillar is now available in AWS Well-Architected Tool |
| 2022-06-21 | Tool revisions / What's New | It is now possible to preview custom lenses before publishing and to add tags. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / AWS Well-Architected Tool adds multiple enhancements to custom lenses |
| 2022-06-30 | Tool revisions / What's New | It is now possible to share workloads and custom lenses with organizations and organizational units (OUs) within AWS Organizations. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / Integration of AWS Well-Architected Tool with AWS Organizations |
| 2022-11-07 | Tool revisions / What's New | Integration with AWS Trusted Advisor and AWS Service Catalog AppRegistry has been added. The announcement states that Trusted Advisor check results can be displayed within reviews, and that applications and workloads can be linked using AppRegistry. ⚠ AWS Service Catalog – Application Registry is moving to maintenance, as announced in the AWS Service Availability Updates on 2026-06-30, and is no longer available to new customers from 2026-07-30. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / AWS Well-Architected Tool improves workload discovery and speeds up reviews / AWS Service Availability Updates |
Tool 2023–2026 — Profiles, Review Templates, Lens Catalog
In 2023, the Tool gained the ability to manage multiple workloads collectively, and also introduced the Lens Catalog, a central repository for AWS lenses. In 2025, the latest Framework update was incorporated into the Tool.| Date | Recorded In | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-03-30 | Tool revisions / What's New | A consolidated report that shows the risks across all workloads has been added. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / AWS Well-Architected Tool Announces Consolidated Report and Enhanced Search functionality |
| 2023-06-13 | Tool revisions / What's New | Profiles have been added. The announcement explains that creating a profile by answering questions related to business goals will prioritize questions aligned with those goals. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / Well-Architected introduces Profiles |
| 2023-10-03 | Tool revisions / What's New | Review Templates have been added. The announcement states that these templates allow users to standardize answers and notes for multiple workloads, making them reusable when defining new workloads. This coincides with a major revision to the Framework. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / Reduce duplication using Well-Architected Templates |
| 2023-11-26 | Tool revisions / What's New | The Lens Catalog is now generally available. The announcement describes the Lens Catalog as a central repository for lenses created by AWS experts. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / Announcing Lens Catalog for the AWS Well-Architected Tool |
| 2024-04-16 | Tool revisions / What's New | A Jira connector has been added. The announcement explains that the Tool can now create Jira tickets, and updates are reflected back in the Tool when those tickets are resolved. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / Announcing the AWS Well-Architected Tool Connector for Jira |
| 2025-04-09 | What's New | The latest Framework update is now available in the Tool. The announcement says that this update includes updates and improvements for 78 new best practices and that this release refreshed 100% of each pillar. ⚠ The announcement does not state which dated version it refers to. Its mention of 14 best practices and the Reliability pillar matches the 2024-11-06 announcement. ⚠ There is no row for this date in the Tool revision table. See: New Guidance in the Well-Architected Tool |
| 2025-10-13 | Tool revisions | A section providing guidance on conducting a Well-Architected Framework Review (WAFR) using the Tool has been added to the user guide. ⚠ This is the most recent row in the Tool revision table on the verification date. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / Well-Architected Framework Review (WAFR) |
| 2026-06-16 | What's New | WAFR reports generated in the Tool can now be used for the Foundational Technical Review (FTR) in AWS Partner Central. The announcement states that partners without SOC 2 certification can submit WAFR reports generated by the Tool as an alternative validation pathway. See: AWS Partner Central now validates Foundational Technical Review in minutes |
Lenses 2017–2023 — From the First Lenses to the End of the FTR Lens
The first lenses were published as whitepapers before the Tool. The Tool began supporting lenses in 2020. The FTR lens, which was added to the Tool in 2020, concluded its run between 2022 and 2023.| Date | Recorded In | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2017-11-01 | Lens revisions | The whitepapers for the Serverless Applications Lens and the High Performance Computing Lens were released. Both revision tables give this date as the initial publication. It is the oldest initial publication date among the lens revision tables this article opened. See: Document revisions - Serverless Applications Lens / Document revisions - High Performance Computing Lens |
| 2018-11-01 | Lens revisions | The whitepaper for the IoT Lens was released. See: Document revisions - Internet of Things (IoT) Lens |
| 2020-02-11 | What's New | The Serverless Lens became available in the Tool. The announcement states that this lens can be applied to both new and existing workloads. ⚠ There is no row for this date in the Tool revision table. See: AWS Well-Architected Tool now supports AWS Serverless Lens |
| 2020-04-16 | Lens revisions | The whitepaper for the Machine Learning Lens was released. See: Document revisions - Machine Learning Lens |
| 2020-12-03 | Tool revisions / What's New / Lens revisions | The FTR lens and the SaaS Lens were added to the Tool. The revision table for the SaaS Lens whitepaper also gives this date as its initial publication. The announcement for the FTR lens explains that it is for preparing for the APN Foundational Technical Review. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / AWS Foundational Technical Review Lens now available in the AWS Well-Architected Tool / AWS Well-Architected Tool now Supports AWS SaaS Lens / Document revisions - SaaS Lens |
| 2022-12-14 | Tool revisions | The FTR lens was removed from the Tool. The revision table states, This release removes the FTR lens from the tool. ⚠ The announcement page from 2020-12-03 includes an additional note dated 2023-01-31 (next row). See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool |
| 2023-01-31 | What's New | A note was added to the 2020-12-03 announcement indicating that the FTR lens has been deprecated. The note begins with Update: 1/31/2023 - The AWS Foundational Technical Review Lens has been deprecated. ⚠ The Tool revision table states that the FTR lens was removed on 2022-12-14. See: AWS Foundational Technical Review Lens now available in the AWS Well-Architected Tool |
Lenses 2024–2026 — Lens Catalog and Lenses for AI Workloads
Since the Lens Catalog arrived on 2023-11-26, the announcements of 2024-03-26, 2024-06-27, and 2025-04-17 and the Tool revision table have recorded new lenses as additions to the Lens Catalog. Since 2025, lenses for AI workloads have followed one after another. However, the Responsible AI Lens and the Agentic AI Lens, whose whitepapers appeared in or after November 2025, were not on the Lens Catalog page on the verification date.| Date | Recorded In | Summary |
|---|---|---|
| 2024-03-26 | Tool revisions / What's New | Four new lenses have been added to the Lens Catalog. The announcement highlights the Connected Mobility Lens, Government Lens, DevOps Guidance Lens, and Migration Lens, and also notes an update to the Data Analytics Lens. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / Well-Architected adds 4 new lenses to the Lens Catalog |
| 2024-06-27 | Tool revisions / What's New | The Financial Services Industry Lens has been added to the Lens Catalog, and the Mergers and Acquisitions Lens has been updated. This is the same announcement as the Framework revision of 2024-06-27. See: Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool / Updates and Expansion to the AWS Well-Architected Framework and Lens Catalog |
| 2025-04-15 | Lens revisions | The whitepaper for the Generative AI Lens has been published. The revision table states, Generative AI Lens first published. ⚠ What's New and the Tool revision table record it on 2025-04-17 (next row). See: Document revisions - Generative AI Lens |
| 2025-04-17 | What's New / Tool revisions | The Generative AI Lens has been announced and added to the Lens Catalog. The announcement states that this lens can now be used as an official AWS lens in the Lens Catalog. The Tool revision table for this date simply states that one lens has been added to the Lens Catalog. See: Introducing the Well-Architected Generative AI Lens / Document revisions - AWS Well-Architected Tool |
| 2025-11-18 | What's New | The Responsible AI Lens has been announced, and the Machine Learning Lens and Generative AI Lens have been updated. The announcement mentions one new lens and two updated lenses. ⚠ The revision tables of all three lenses record this on 2025-11-19 (next row). See: New AWS Well-Architected Lenses for AI and ML workloads |
| 2025-11-19 | Lens revisions | The whitepaper for the Responsible AI Lens has been published, and new versions of the Machine Learning Lens and Generative AI Lens are now available. The revision table for the Generative AI Lens indicates that this version includes a new section on agentic AI. ⚠ The table on the Lens Catalog page, as of the verification date, does not list the Responsible AI Lens. See: Document revisions - Responsible AI Lens / Document revisions - Machine Learning Lens / Document revisions - Generative AI Lens |
| 2026-06-10 | Lens revisions | The whitepaper for the Agentic AI Lens has been published. The revision table states, Initial release of the Agentic AI Lens. ⚠ This article could not find a What's New announcement for this lens. The table on the Lens Catalog page, as of the verification date, also does not list this lens. The product page lists this lens in its Lenses section. See: Document revisions - Agentic AI Lens / AWS Well-Architected |
Current Overview, Functions, Features of AWS Well-Architected
This section outlines the status of the Well-Architected Framework's pillars and versions, the functions of the Tool, and how lenses are handled, as of the verification date, 2026-09-25. This overview will not delve into the details of the pillars or lenses themselves.The Six Pillars and the Order in Which They Were Added
On the verification date, the Security Pillar whitepaper lists the following six core pillars in its introduction. Other pillar whitepapers also list these same six pillars in the same order.The framework is based on six pillars:
Operational Excellence
Security
Reliability
Performance Efficiency
Cost Optimization
SustainabilityThis order differs from the order in which the pillars were added. The initial four pillars, introduced in 2015, are Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, and Cost Optimization. Operational Excellence, added in 2016, was later moved to the front in 2017. Sustainability, added in 2021, is currently listed last.
The Latest Revision and the Date It Reached the Tool
The most recent row in the Framework revision table, as of the verification date, is the Major update from 2024-11-06. The announcement from 2025-04-09 states that the latest Framework update is now available in the Tool. While the announcement does not specify the date of the version it refers to, it, like the 2024-11-06 announcement, mentions 14 best practices and the Reliability pillar.⚠ On the verification date, the
Framework versions: list in the revision table stops at 2024-06-27. The list does not include the 2024-11-06 update, nor does it include 2025-02-25, whose path exists. This article could not confirm from primary sources how this list corresponds to lens versions in the Tool.Feature Names and the First Date of Each Feature in the Timeline
This section lists the key features described in the Tool user guide, along with the first date each feature appears in the timeline. The descriptions are concise summaries from the user guide.| Feature | What the User Guide says | First date in this timeline |
|---|---|---|
| milestones | Records the state of the workload at a specific point in time. | No row in the Tool revision table |
| custom lenses | Allows users to create and share lenses with their own pillars, questions, best practices, and improvement plans. | 2021-11-29 |
| Profiles | Provides business context and goals, helping to narrow down the questions prioritized in reviews. | 2023-06-13 |
| Review Templates | Creates templates with pre-filled answers that can be used across multiple workloads. | 2023-10-03 |
| Lens Catalog | A collection of official lenses created and maintained by AWS. | 2023-11-26 |
⚠ The Tool revision table has no row for the launch of milestones. The user guide states that milestones are created before upgrading a lens (see the anatomy table below).
The Lens Catalog page, as viewed on the verification date, lists AWS's official lenses in a table. ⚠ This table and the lenses published as whitepapers do not represent the same set of lenses. The table viewed on the verification date does not include the Responsible AI Lens and the Agentic AI Lens, which have whitepapers. This article does not provide a complete list of lenses. For the latest list, see Lens Catalog for AWS WA Tool.
Anatomy of the Revisions
This section lists, one by one, what revisions to the Framework and the lenses leave in existing reviews, in the same three columns as AWS Service Renames Reference.- What changed holds what a primary source said had changed.
- What stayed holds only what a primary source said did not change, remains, or continues to be available. Where a primary source says nothing, the cell says "The source does not say." No cell is filled by inference from another row.
- Where AWS recorded it holds the primary source that says it.
First, here are five revisions related to the Framework.
| Change | What changed | What stayed | Where AWS recorded it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Addition of the Operational Excellence pillar (2016-11-01) | One pillar was added, and other pillars were revised to reduce overlap. | The source does not say. | Framework revisions |
| Moving Operational Excellence to the front (2017-11-01) | Pillar order. Operational Excellence was rewritten so that it frames the other pillars. | The source does not say. | Framework revisions |
| New version of the Framework (2020-07-08, 2020-07-09) | Most questions and answers. New workloads defined in the Tool use the new version. | Existing workloads. The announcement states, For existing workloads, you are given the option to upgrade to the new version of the Framework. | What's New, Framework revisions |
| Addition of the Sustainability pillar (2021-11-20, 2021-12-02, Tool on 2022-03-31) | The number of pillars increased to six. | The source does not say. | Framework revisions, What's New |
| Framework update of 2024-11-06 (Tool: 2025-04-09) | Best practices. The announcement highlights the Reliability pillar. | The Tool at the time of the update. The 2024-11-06 announcement states, Updates in this release will be incorporated into the AWS Well-Architected Tool in future releases | What's New, Framework revisions |
Next, there are five items related to the Tool and its lenses. Of these, three are not date-specific events but rather rules defined in the user guide.
| Change | What changed | What stayed | Where AWS recorded it |
|---|---|---|---|
| New version of an AWS lens (rule; Tool revisions rows on 2019-05-01 and 2020-07-08) | New workloads use the new version. Upgrading a lens is irreversible. | Answers to existing questions. The user guide states, Your answers to existing questions are retained. Milestones are created before upgrading, and previous versions can be viewed in the Milestones tab. | Tool user guide: Lens upgrades, Upgrading a lens |
| Removing a lens from a workload (rule) | The lens no longer applies to the workload. | The data associated with the lens. The user guide states, If a lens is removed from a workload, the data associated with the lens is retained. and notes that the data is restored if the lens is added back. The AWS Well-Architected Framework Lens cannot be removed. | Tool user guide: Using lenses, Removing a lens |
| New version of custom lenses (rule) | Major versions are notified to workloads that use the lens. Minor versions are applied automatically. | Workloads will continue to use the previous version even after a major version is released. The user guide states, Major version changes are not automatically applied to workloads using the lens. | Tool user guide: Publishing an update to a custom lens |
| End of the FTR lens (2022-12-14, 2023-01-31) | The lens was removed from the Tool. The What's New note says it is deprecated. | Using the Tool to prepare for the Foundational Technical Review. The note states, you can continue to use the Well-Architected tool to prepare for Foundational Technical Review | Tool revisions, note on the What's New announcement |
| AWS Service Catalog – Application Registry maintenance (2026-06-30) | From 2026-07-30, new customers can no longer use it. | Existing customers can continue to use it. The announcement states, Customers already using these services and features can continue to do so. ⚠ The announcement does not mention integration with the Tool. | What's New (AWS Service Availability Updates) |
For three of the ten, the primary sources do not say what stays. All three are additions or reorderings of pillars. The Tool user guide, which sets out how versions and lenses are handled, and individual announcements state what stays.
What the Reference Pages Showed on the Verification Date
The table above outlines changes documented by AWS. This section, separately, lists what the reference pages displayed on the verification date of 2026-09-25. An observation is not a statement by AWS that something stays.| Page | What it showed on 2026-09-25 |
|---|---|
| Framework Document Revisions | The most recent row shows a date of 2024-11-06. The final Framework versions: section lists four versions: 2024-06-27, 2023-10-03, 2023-04-10, and 2022-03-31. |
| Framework Version-Specific Paths | Of the paths tested in this article, those for 2022-03-31, 2023-04-10, 2023-10-03, 2024-06-27, and 2025-02-25 returned a revision table page. The paths for 2024-11-06 and 2025-04-09 did not. |
| Tool Document Revisions | Latest documentation update: October 13, 2025. There are no rows for 2026. |
| Lens Catalog for AWS WA Tool | The table includes Generative AI. It does not include Responsible AI Lens or Agentic AI Lens. |
| AWS Well-Architected Product Page | The Lenses section includes Agentic AI Lens. |
| AWS Service Availability Updates (October 2025, March 2026, June 2026) | The AWS Well-Architected Tool is not mentioned in any of the updates. AWS Service Catalog – Application Registry is mentioned in the June 2026 update. |
| AWS Well-Architected Labs Website | The site returned a page. This article did not find an AWS announcement of its end. |
⚠ The values in this table reflect what was displayed on the verification date. None of the sources this article checked says whether AWS will change these particular values.
Frequently Asked Questions about AWS Well-Architected History
This section answers common questions about the AWS Well-Architected timeline.How many pillars did the AWS Well-Architected Framework have when it was first published?
It had four. The AWS News Blog from 2015-10-02 describes the Framework as being built upon four pillars: Security, Reliability, Performance Efficiency, and Cost Optimization. The initial row in the Framework revision table dates back to 2015-10-01. The Operational Excellence pillar was added on 2016-11-01, the Sustainability pillar was added in 2021, and the current total number of pillars is six.When was the Operational Excellence pillar added, and why is it listed first?
According to the Framework revision table, the Operational Excellence pillar was added on 2016-11-01 and moved to the front of the pillars on 2017-11-01. The 2017 row says that Operational Excellence was rewritten so that it frames the other pillars. On the product page that the Internet Archive saved on 2017-01-23, Operational Excellence was at the end of the five pillars.When was the Sustainability pillar added?
The date when the Sustainability pillar was added varies depending on the documentation. The Framework revision table shows two rows: 2021-11-20 and 2021-12-02. The What's New announcement and the initial publication of the Sustainability pillar whitepaper are both dated 2021-12-02. The pillar became available in the Tool on 2022-03-31. This article does not reduce these dates to one.Did the AWS Well-Architected Framework start in 2015?
While the Framework was publicly released as a whitepaper in 2015, it actually existed prior to that. An AWS Architecture Blog post from 2020-07-09 states that the Framework was introduced in 2012, and the first three versions were used internally. The 2015 whitepaper represented the fourth version, and the 2020 version is the eighth.Does a Framework update change my existing workload reviews in the Well-Architected Tool?
According to the user guide, new lens versions are used for newly defined workloads. Existing workloads remain on their original version, and the Tool's Notifications page will indicate that these workloads are using an outdated version. Before upgrading, a milestone is created, and existing answers to questions are carried over. After an upgrade, the original version cannot be restored. The announcement of 2020-07-09 also states that existing workloads will be presented with the option to upgrade to the new Framework version.What happens to my answers if I remove a lens from a workload?
According to the user guide, the data associated with the lens will remain, and that data will also be restored when the lens is added back to the workload. However, the AWS Well-Architected Framework Lens cannot be removed from the workload.When did custom lenses and the Lens Catalog become available?
Custom lenses were made available on 2021-11-29, according to a What's New announcement. There is no row in the Tool revision table indicating this launch. The Lens Catalog became generally available on 2023-11-26. The user guide, as of the verification date, states that users can apply lenses to workloads from two categories: those in the Lens Catalog and custom lenses.What happened to the FTR lens?
The FTR lens was added to the Tool alongside the SaaS Lens on 2020-12-03. The Tool revision table indicates that the FTR lens was removed from the Tool on 2022-12-14. The What's New announcement of 2020-12-03 carries a note dated 2023-01-31, saying that the FTR lens has been deprecated but that the Tool can still be used to prepare for the FTR. On 2026-06-16, it became possible to submit WAFR reports created in the Tool to FTR through AWS Partner Central.Are the Responsible AI Lens and the Agentic AI Lens in the Lens Catalog?
On the verification date, neither the Responsible AI Lens nor the Agentic AI Lens appears in the table on the Lens Catalog page. The whitepaper for the Responsible AI Lens was published on 2025-11-19, and the whitepaper for the Agentic AI Lens was published on 2026-06-10. The Generative AI Lens was added to the Lens Catalog, as announced on 2025-04-17, and is in that table on the verification date. ⚠ This is what the page displayed on the verification date; the sources this article checked do not say whether the two lenses will be added to the Lens Catalog.Are AWS Well-Architected Labs still available?
As of the verification date of 2026-09-25, the AWS Well-Architected Labs website returned a page. This article found no AWS announcement indicating the end of the Labs program. In the Framework revision table, the revision of 2019-07-01 added links to Labs to the whitepaper.Summary
The AWS Well-Architected Framework was initially released as a whitepaper with four pillars on 2015-10-01. In 2016, the Operational Excellence pillar was added, and in 2017, it was moved to the front. In 2021, the Sustainability pillar was added, bringing the total number of pillars to six. The questions and best practices were significantly revised in 2018, 2020, 2023, and 2024.The AWS Well-Architected Tool became generally available on 2018-11-29, and in 2019, it became possible to upgrade the Framework version that a workload uses. Subsequently, features such as custom lenses, organizational sharing, Profiles, Review Templates, and the Lens Catalog were added. Lenses began as whitepapers in 2017 and became usable in the Tool in 2020, and since 2025, lenses for AI workloads have followed one after another.
⇒ Even after the Framework and AWS lenses are revised, existing reviews in the Tool remain linked to their original versions. According to the Tool's user guide, existing workloads remain on their original versions, and milestones are created before upgrading. Answers to existing questions are carried over. Even if a lens is removed, the associated data is retained. However, the sources for the three pillar additions and reorderings in the anatomy table do not say what stays.
⚠ Showing which source each date comes from is this timeline's method. As far as this article checked, seven events have different dates in different sources. Two updates reached the Tool months after the whitepaper. The revision table for the Framework itself also includes instances where past rows have had their classifications and descriptions modified retroactively. All information presented is current as of 2026-09-25.
This timeline will be updated as AWS Well-Architected continues to evolve.
References:
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Written by Hidekazu Konishi